


Fallout

by nochick_fics



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist (Anime 2003), Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-21
Packaged: 2018-05-22 01:34:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6065731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nochick_fics/pseuds/nochick_fics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Havoc, Roy, and others do what they must to survive in the wake of unspeakable horror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. "Hush"

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Darth_Tantrum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darth_Tantrum/gifts).



_June 14_

_Keeping a journal had been Falman’s idea. He said that it would be good for us to document the things we see so that the government--or what’s left of it--would one day be able to piece together all the events that happened after the… well, the uprising, I guess you could call it. I can’t say that I’m optimistic enough to believe that there will even be a “one day,” but I figured what the hell? If nothing else, doing this will hopefully distract me from the horror out there, even if only for a little while._

_Dear God, so much fucking horror. But I don’t want to write about that. Not yet._

_By the way, Falman is dead. I should know--the bullet that took his life came from my own gun. All I can do now is try to find consolation in knowing that I killed him before he turned. He died a man. The way things are going, that’s the best any of us can hope for._

_My name is Jean Havoc and this is my account of the end of the world._

*****

Jean closed the journal and set it down beside him on the cot. It didn’t seem like much, what he had written, but it was a start. Then again, he supposed there was no one particular way to document how one went about witnessing the death and destruction of three-fourths of the planet, no one particular way to describe how one raised a gun to a comrade’s head and pulled the trigger, and no one particular way to rationalize how existence had become, for all intents and purposes, a goddamn horror movie.   
  
Except this was real. So very, _very_ real. 

He gazed around what had once been Roy’s office, a place that he had always joked was more like a home away from home. Only now, it was. Jean closed his eyes and took a long, slow breath, savoring the rare gift of silence and solitude. If not for the fact that there was an apocalypse going on, East HQ, one of the last standing bastions of defense, was more like a horribly overcrowded college dorm than a military facility crammed full of survivors, a place where the concept of peace and quiet was almost unheard of. Five minutes--maybe even ten, if he was lucky--to indulge in the nothing. That was all he wanted.    
  
Roy, both his commanding officer and, well, his roommate... among other things... was with the Elric brothers, preparing Al for his venture beyond the gates and, more so, soothing Ed’s nerves--or at least, _trying_ to. Jean really couldn’t blame him, though; he, too, was a bit nervous about the idea of sending Al out there in all of that madness, empty armor or not. But he also knew that he and Roy would have forced the issue if necessary. These were bad times and thinking with one’s heart was a luxury that none of them could afford. 

Jean swept the journal onto the floor and stretched out on his back. Gazing up at the ceiling, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He gave the pack a brief shake and guessed it was half-empty. Or half-full, but who the fuck could be positive right now? He briefly contemplated waiting to have one--he only had three packs left and it wasn’t as if he could just pop down to the store and buy more--but decided against it. So he opened the pack and retrieved one, then tossed the pack onto the floor. He lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, relishing the rush of smoke that filled his lungs. The faint, faraway sound of voices floated into the room and he tried his damnedest to ignore it. He had another minute or two, tops.  
  
His free hand fell over the side of the cot and grazed the corner of the journal.

“Stupid fucking Falman,” he muttered suddenly into the empty space above him. 

A fresh plume of smoke rose toward the ceiling as Jean’s brow furrowed. What happened hadn’t been Falman’s fault. Well, not entirely. Keeping one of those… _things_ … on the premises, no matter how supposedly secured, was one of the few topics that he and Roy had vehemently disagreed on, so much so that the bastard had finally pulled rank to get his way. Jean had been so livid about it that he volunteered for night watch for the better part of a week to avoid being around him in their office/room. While it was true that they needed to know their enemy, Jean felt that what Roy had proposed was something more along the lines of inviting your enemy to an all-you-can-eat buffet. And they had lost one of their own because of it.   
  
There was no joy at all to be found in being right about the wrong things.

He carefully tapped ash into the palm of his hand and forced his thoughts elsewhere before grief and guilt could rear their ugly heads. It was the one thing about these little stolen sabbaticals that he hated the most, the emergence of feelings that would serve no purpose other than to slow him down. Roy was always better at quelling useless emotions, better than Jean could ever hope to be. But then again, maybe that wasn’t always a good thing.

He found himself thinking ahead to tasks that would need to be accomplished in the near future. Most importantly, they would have to go look for more food and supplies (and, admittedly, alcohol and cigarettes) when Al came back… assuming that he did.

 _No, don’t think like that. He_ will.

Jean would once again lead the excursion, as he always did, while Roy stayed behind. Instead, that psychopath Kimblee would be the one to accompany him. A nutjob indeed, but a useful one, especially considering the fact that dead bodies exploded, too.   

Taking another drag, Jean heard that the faint, faraway voices weren’t so faint and faraway anymore, and he knew that his alone time was drawing to a close. With a tired grunt, he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the cot. He took a few more quick puffs before using his thumb and forefinger to pinch out the glowing ember at the tip of the cigarette. He felt no more or less rested than he had minutes ago, but that wasn’t so surprising, all things considered. These days, even the deepest of slumber was riddled with tension. 

He stood up just as the knocking commenced. 

“Lieutenant Havoc?”

“Yeah.” Jean walked over to a nearby wastebasket, pitched the butt, and brushed off his hands. He turned around and found himself face-to-face with Fuery and Breda. Together, they comprised the last remaining members of what each of them had once jokingly but somewhat affectionately referred to as “Mustang’s Gang.”  But now, Falman was dead.  And Riza was—

“The Colonel needs you,” Breda announced, his impressive mass all but blotting out the smaller Fuery, although to be fair, his mass was a little less massive since food was strictly rationed. The man could actually close his jacket now. Barely.

“Right,” Jean said. He grabbed his cigarettes and shoved them into his pocket, already craving another one in the worst way. “Let’s go.”

Breda stepped out into the hallway, followed by Fuery, who briefly gave Jean a look akin to a hurt puppy.  Understandable, yes, but ultimately pointless. They could grieve all they wanted if and when this nightmare ended. For now, their job was to _live._

Jean closed the door behind him and let the two men lead the way toward the room where a young boy was getting ready to walk among the monsters.  

The silence had been nice while it lasted. 


	2. "Everywhere a Zombie"

Barry the Chopper couldn't have cared less about the present woes of humanity--or rather, what was left of it. Not when he had carte blanche to go out and slice and dice the walking dead at his leisure. Indeed, spending his days roaming the streets and dismembering soulless bodies--with his own _bodiless soul_ , no less--was pretty much paradise.  A morbid paradise, true enough, but paradise still.

He spotted the overturned car a ways up the road and headed toward it in a slow, bulky amble. There was no need to rush; the piercing screams that he'd heard minutes ago had finally ceased. The poor bastard who had foolishly decided to make a break for less dead pastures would be joining the ranks of the swarm surrounding the car very soon.

Tightening his grip on the handle of the monstrous cleaver in his right hand, Barry approached the undead throng. They did not acknowledge his presence, and why should they? He had lost his acquaintance with flesh some time ago. He gazed down at what remained of their feast; a man, at least as far as he could tell amid the entrails strung about him. After taking a good, long look at the ravaged corpse, Barry amended his previous theory--this one wouldn’t be getting up again _at all_.

“Stupid, stupid human,” he murmured, his voice filled with genuine regret… because it meant one less body he would have a chance to butcher. How unfair!

Hearing Barry’s voice through the din of low growling and wet chomping, one of the creatures turned toward him with its dead, white-eyed stare and a face oozing with unspeakable decay. It looked past Barry--who was, of course, no more edible than the car beside him--and saw nothing of interest. But before it could turn around and resume its meal, Barry struck with a frightening speed, bringing the cleaver down on the monster and splitting its skull in half with a sound that was like music to what should have been his ears. He yanked the weapon out of the now convulsing form and gave it a good shake, flinging off matted hair, dark blood, bone chips, and a fair amount of dead brain. A gorgeous sight.

The banquet went on uninterrupted as one of the dinner guests fell over, much to Barry’s chagrin. It would have been nice if they at least had the decency to scream or cry or run or _something._ But oh well.

“Beggars can’t be choosers!” he shouted merrily, raising the cleaver high into the air…

*****

“Okay, Al… are you ready?”

“Y-Yeah.”

Jean looked up at the gentle metal giant and gave him a reassuring smile. It just didn’t seem right that such a sweet kid could be robbed of his body but yet still be able to feel so much fear, unwarranted as it (hopefully) might be in this case.

“I’m going to have my eye on you the whole time you’re out there in case anything does happen,” he said. “I’m sure everything will be fine, but… just in case.”

“Hawkeye’s a better sniper than you are, Havoc,” Ed grumbled from across the room. “We’re supposed to feel better knowing that the _second_ best sniper is on the job? Greeeeat.” The teen folded his arms and scowled, but still, the genuine worry for his little brother was plain as day.

“Brother…”

A small, exasperated noise escaped Al and Jean knew it wouldn’t be the last when it came to Ed. And it wasn’t as if he couldn’t sympathize, because he could. Very much. However, the last thing any of them needed was agitation, especially Al. To confirm this, he glanced over the short alchemist’s head at Roy, who had remained silent and aloof during each of Ed’s mini-diatribes. Until now.

“Breda. Fuery.” Roy turned to his subordinates. “Head down with Al and Ed. I’ll be there shortly.”

Ed turned around and glared at the older man, perhaps mistaking Roy’s choice of wording as an insult, and Jean tensed briefly, mentally preparing himself to subdue the boy should it come to that.

Luckily, it didn’t. Still, with that one, it never hurt to be ready for anything.

“Come on, Al,” Ed muttered, stalking over to the door where Breda and Fuery waited with matching apprehensive expressions--dealing with a pissy Fullmetal was pretty low on their list of favorite things to do, too. Al offered an awkward yet endearing bow, and then obediently followed his brother out the door behind the two men, leaving Jean and Roy alone.

“He’s right, you know,” Jean said with a bitter grin. “She was always a better shot.”

Roy walked over to a table in the center of the room upon which a vast assortment of weaponry was laid out. In the few instances during which they selected particularly skilled civilian survivors to bear arms, this was the place where Roy or Jean--or Riza, at one time--would familiarize them with their options, something of a crash course in instruments of death. He picked up a rifle that was outfitted with a long range scope and looked it over thoroughly. Roy then handed it to Jean and leaned back against the table. He pulled his glove out of his right pocket and held it firmly in his grasp, his thumb grazing slowly over the smooth material.

“Well, she’s not here now, is she?”

Anyone else would have been taken aback by the passiveness in Roy’s voice; so authentic did it sound that it was no wonder the man was considered by many to be an unfeeling bastard. What happened with Riza had dealt a phenomenal blow to their collective psyche; she was… _had_ been… the heart of their team, after all. But once again, Jean had to remind himself that Roy always hid the true extent of his feelings, far better than most. A useful skill when necessary.

But again he had to wonder: at what cost?

“No, she’s not,” Jean replied softly. He rested the rifle in the crook of his arm, barrel down, and regarded the man who might have never become his lover if not for the near eradication of the human race. “You know you may have to do something about Ed if he thinks that things look bad,” he added, changing the subject. There was no point in discussing those other things right now.

“I doubt it will come to that. Rationality hasn’t always been one of Fullmetal’s finer attributes, but I believe he knows that Al won’t be in any immediate jeopardy. If he _does_ interfere, at least we have options.” Roy reached into his left pocket and pulled out a capped syringe, a last resort.

Truthfully, Jean really didn’t think it would come to that, either. However, with Ed, especially where his younger brother was concerned, it was best to expect the unexpected. And while he didn’t think that Fuery would be all that helpful if they _did_ have to hold the kid down and dose him, he was fairly certain that Breda was up to the task. If nothing else, all the big man would have to do was plant his considerable ass right on top of him long enough for Roy to act.

“Good enough,” he said. “Ready?”

Roy nodded. He returned the syringe to his pocket and slid on his glove. The two men fell into stride as they walked toward the door together, and just as Roy’s hand reached for the knob, Jean spoke again.

“Be careful down there… Sir.”

It was a legitimate sentiment; if there was anyone left to lead in this dying world, Roy would eventually be the one to do the leading, which made his well-being a priority of the utmost importance. Of course there were other reasons that Jean cared about Roy’s safety, personal ones. But that was neither here nor there. Much.

“Just make sure you cover that kid’s ass, because I’d rather take on a thousand of those things than one pissed-off shrimp any day,” Roy responded with a wry smirk. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

*****

The small room was an improvement over the cell that he had once called home. Even so, Zolf Kimblee was still somewhat offended that he had to suffer any manner of confinement whatsoever. It wasn’t as if he had killed anyone of the breathing variety lately... except for that one guy.  And, in his defense, the only reason that he’d even had to do that was to get their little entourage out of an especially nasty jam when they had found themselves with a dwindling supply of ammo and surrounded by a rather ravenous bunch of living dead folks. Kimblee had thought his actions were quite heroic, but Havoc had shown much disagreement with his tactics. Using his _fist._ He supposed that the lieutenant's instinctively volatile reaction was at least partially fueled by what had happened to that Hawkeye woman during the skirmish, but still, it was completely uncalled for. The man was lucky that Kimblee had been gracious enough not to return the favor in spades. If it had been anyone else, especially Mustang, he would have. 

He supposed that his situation could have always been worse. He could be somewhere out there fending for himself, without the backing of the nation’s military--or what was left of it. An even more disquieting thought was that he could be dead himself. As crazy as they claimed he was, Kimblee was not in any hurry to become deceased anytime soon. And he was even more opposed to the thought of being _un_ -deceased, what with all of the moaning and shuffling about and bad motor skills and cannibalism. No, thank you.

Kimblee reveled in the knowledge that he was not expendable, as had been the poor schmuck he had killed--to save the others, mind you.  And so for now, he was content with being a tool, a weapon. Pretty much the best damn weapon in their entire arsenal, if he did say so himself, even better than that prick Mustang. Those things out there could live through fire if they weren’t burned to a crisp. Kimblee’s ability, on the other hand--his _artistry_ , as it were--was not so hit-or-miss in a pinch.

He walked over to the window, the only one in the room, and gazed outside at the desolation. They were out there somewhere, and close, _very_ close. He could sense their presence as sure as some could sense the rain on a sunny day, and he still could not believe that Mustang had ordered all proximity mines to be disabled to draw them near so he could send that Elric scrapheap out there to traipse among them. Wasn’t he supposed to be the _sane_ one?  

With a slight shake of the head, Kimblee turned away from the window and reclaimed his seat on the edge of the cot, carefully setting his suit jacket aside so that he could stretch out his legs. None of it pertained to him, at least not yet, and so he would turn a blind eye to their stupidity until he was called upon to remedy it or it affected him directly, whichever came first.

In the meantime, he would simply bide his time and wait for the bodies to fall where they may.

*****

If Greed was supposed to be mourning the end of civilization, no one thought to let him know. As far as he was concerned, the recent string of events was hardly a bad thing; no people meant more of everything, just for him.  Well, whatever was  _left_ of everything, at any rate. It was a total win-win situation--with one not so minor drawback.

“You like that, do ya?” he asked the thing across the table which was presently gnawing away on his fingers. While Greed was hardly familiar with the concept of gratitude, there was something to be said for his Ultimate Shield; his brethren had not been so fortunate. Then again, no great loss there. Honestly? He hoped that they had all died slowly and fully aware of the knowledge that they were being eaten alive. Served them right.  
  
Bored with the game, Greed curled his fingers and grasped the lower half of his would-be devourer’s putrid face. His claws sank effortlessly into a blackened tongue that dislodged with sickening ease, and it slithered out of the thing's mouth and plopped onto the table next to a half-empty bottle of warm beer, twitching slightly. Greed wrenched suddenly, fiercely, dislocating its mandible in a most horrific fashion and leaving it to dangle grotesquely, like a door ripped violently from its hinges.

“Good luck eating now, asshole.”

Greed pulled his hand away and casually wiped it on what was left of his guest’s tattered clothing before it crumpled to the ground in a jerking, flailing heap. Its interest in dining on Greed was now long gone for lack of means to do so, and the spectacle did not go unnoticed. So they felt some sort of pain, did they? Maybe not pain as a human being would know it, but it was obvious that this one had lost all of its happy thoughts.

“Well, good,” Greed whispered. He contemplated crushing its skull under his heel and stomping it into a pulp--he contemplated it _strongly_. But the Homunculus was not that kind. This fucking thing had killed his crew, and, in turn, he’d had to kill them _again_. The experience had been… extremely unpleasant.

No, let it starve to death for all he cared. And if it took weeks or even months? All the better.

Greed stood up and stepped over his victim, then walked outside into the light of day. Things were pretty quiet as far as he could tell, but he knew better than to assume. While he was no longer _technically_ human, he was still comprised of flesh beneath his Shield, which cemented his spot on the menu,  and so it was best not to stick around until dinnertime. Besides, he had somewhere to be… and someone to kill.  Now that the world had turned to shit, it was the only real purpose he had anymore. The only one that mattered, that was. 

He took one last, contemplative look at the Devil’s Nest exterior. It had never been the best joint, or the cleanest, or the classiest. But for what it was worth, it had always been his favorite.

Pity he would never see it again.

*****

From his position at the westernmost corner of the barracks rooftop, Jean peered through the rifle’s powerful scope with one sharp blue eye. He had counted almost ninety of them so far, eighty-seven to be exact, swarming around down there en masse in a way that almost made his skin crawl. The idea of letting them venture so close--they weren't knocking on the door or anything, but close enough--hadn’t sat completely right with him from the very start, but still, so far, so good. Not surprisingly, they were completely indifferent to Al, who walked alongside the horror in slow, measured paces. The boy could have been out there doing cartwheels for all it mattered; to them, he was nothing more than a moving roadblock, hindering their lethargic wandering. It was exactly as he and Roy had suspected, and he hoped that Ed finally had all the reassurance that he needed with regards to his brother’s safety… until the next time. Jean couldn’t breathe a sigh of relief himself, though, not until the boy had returned safely; he knew better than to relax, even when all signs pointed to yes. Falman had done that once. And once was all it had taken for him to lose his life.

As soon as Roy gave the all-clear that Al was out of harm’s way, Jean and his team would take out the creatures, and as for Jean, he planned to do so with extreme prejudice, riddling each of them with as many bullets as he could fire before the final head shot. While it  wasn’t often that he allowed himself such a premeditated waste of ammunition, today was a special exception. He was still feeling pretty sore about Hawkeye and Falman and the whole goddamn condition of the planet and there was nothing like engaging in some “live” target practice to relieve his stress.  
  
Well, no, there were _other_ ways, but that would come later tonight.

Afterwards, Roy would see to the final bit of clean up before they reactivated the proximity mines by way of reducing the bodies to ash; the last thing they needed was a heaping pile of rotting flesh within the perimeter. Over the course of the next few days, after Jean and Kimblee returned from their little "trip into town," they would do it all over again. And then after  _that_ , if all went well, it would be time to have another talk with Al. Not that Jean had been told that specifically, but even so, he knew.

Although they had only discussed this experiment of sorts on a professional level, even when crammed together half-naked on a single bunk during the night, Jean had instantly suspected the _real_ reason Roy was suddenly so interested in Al’s otherness… and it was only a matter of time before Ed realized it, too. Yes, it was true, the kid could drastically level the playing field for them, in many ways. But Jean knew in his heart that Roy had only one true objective with regards to using Al in such a way that they wouldn’t have to risk their resources or their lives, because even in the midst of his guilt, his lover was a practical man.

If she was alive, then they would rescue her.  

If she was dead, then they would bury her.

And if she was… something else… then they would take care of that, too.


	3. (Bonus) "Visiting Kimblee"

Jean approached the duo and politely suffered their overzealous saluting, fawning, and other awkward and embarrassing displays of devotion to the ragtag remains of the nation’s military. Under normal circumstances, there was no way that guys like these would ever pass muster without some vigorous training. Unfortunately, ‘normal circumstances’ was a thing of the past.  
  
“Why don’t you guys take a quick break?” he suggested.  
  
“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Sir?” asked one who just barely looked old enough to shave, let alone hold a gun.  
  
“It’s fine,” Jean insisted. “I have to talk to him anyway. Be back in five minutes.”  
  
The two soldiers--kids, practically--saluted him again and took their leave, and Jean shook his head. While he would have never come right out and said so, he strongly believed that having them stand guard outside of Kimblee’s room was like having a couple of mice watch over a snake. In other words, not exactly the best idea. He and Roy had not seen eye-to-eye on this particular course of action either, although this one had not ended tragically. Yet.  
  
Jean lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and exhaled with a forlorn sigh. Steeling himself for the unenviable task ahead as best he could, he knocked forcibly on the door. He tried to think positively; the sooner he did this, the sooner he could call it a day and shut himself in with Roy for the rest of the night.  
  
“Kimblee!” he called out, slowly turning the doorknob. “I’m coming in!”  
  
It was a far cry from the days when they had first recruited Kimblee’s unique brand of assistance for their excursions, back when, under Roy’s strict orders, the alchemist was placed under restraints before Jean would enter the room. But in the time since, as loath as Jean was to admit it, an uneasy sort of understanding developed between the two men. Jean felt fairly confident that Kimblee would not attempt to do anything that would earn him a bullet to the head because he appeared to fancy breathing just as much as the rest of them. However, when all was said and done, it was still impossible to forecast what the man would or would not do, as he so callously demonstrated during their last trip out into the madness.  
  
Simply put, Kimblee was an enigma. And a dangerous one, at that.  
  
He stood by the window in his fine white waistcoat, shirt, and pants, with his long, dark hair neatly pulled back. If he hadn’t heard the stories or witnessed the brutality firsthand, Jean would have found it hard to believe that this dapper, elegant man was a cold-blooded killer.  
  
“Hello, Lieutenant Havoc.”  
  
“Kimblee.” Jean entered the room and shut the door behind him. The last thing he needed was for those two well-meaning children to come back and perform some spectacularly dumbassed feat of supposed masculinity. Fools with guns sometimes tended to do just that.  
  
“I couldn’t help but overhear your little display earlier today,” Kimblee remarked. He turned just enough to peer over his shoulder and favored Jean with a smile that came nowhere close to touching his eyes. “I hope you got them all.”  
  
Jean took a hard hit from his cigarette in lieu of responding and stared calmly into the face of a maniac.  
  
“Day after tomorrow,” he finally said, ignoring Kimblee’s statement altogether. “We’ll leave at dawn.”  
  
“You forgot the magic word.”  
  
“Cooperate or I’ll shoot you.”  
  
Kimblee chuckled at the threat, which was in no way, shape, or form an empty one. The sound of his laughter was low, melodic, and not without a sickening sort of charm. He turned from the window and approached Jean slowly, stopping a respectable distance in front of him. “I would never dream of missing one of our ‘dates,’” he murmured a little too coyly for Jean’s taste while holding out his hand.  
  
Cringing inwardly, Jean pinched the tip of the cigarette, extinguishing it. He dropped the butt onto Kimblee’s outstretched right palm, right in the center of the array that was partly responsible for so much death and destruction. “And if you even _think_ about pulling a stunt like last time--”  
  
“Yes, yes, I know,” Kimblee interrupted, waving off the rest. He tossed the butt into a small trashcan and inspected his hand with an arched brow as if verifying that it hadn’t been somehow sullied by Jean’s offensive cigarette.  
  
“I mean it, Kimblee,” Jean warned. “I don't give a shit what kind of trouble we find when we're out there. No one’s life is expendable.”  
  
“I must respectfully beg to differ.” Kimblee tilted his head and regarded Jean for a moment, then flashed a handsome, dreadfully knowing smile. “I’m sure Riza Hawkeye would, too… if she was here.”  
  
It was only by a gargantuan effort of will that Jean was able to overcome the urge to storm over to him and wreck his smug face, even at the risk of his own gruesome demise. But instead of yielding to the temptation, he turned around--  
  
“Give my regards to Mustang.”  
  
\--and walked out of the room, ignoring the two soldiers as they returned from their break and attempted to kiss his ass even more. He made his way down the barren corridor in long strides, trying to rein in his agitation.  
  
In spite of every life that he had ever taken out of duty or--as with the case of Falman--mercy, he actually wasn’t the killing kind at heart. Of course, killing the undead did not count, for obvious reasons. However, when it came to Zolf Kimblee, Jean sometimes felt as if he could gladly make an exception.  
  
And if the madman did anything out of line during their next journey into desolation, he would.  
  
But enough about all of that. His duty was done and he did not want to think about Kimblee anymore. Truth be told, he also did not want to think about Riza, either. Or Falman or the Elrics or those living dead things or any of it.  
  
A long, hot shower (as long and hot as rationing would allow), a good stiff drink, and Roy. Also stiff, if he was feeling up to it. Those were the things that Jean wanted right now.  
  
He rounded a corner and quickened his pace, eagerly anticipating the coming night and thankful that he had once again lived to see another day come to an end.


	4. "Sundown"

The smell of death was usually the strongest right after showering. Once the suds were rinsed away and the steam dissipated, there it was, like a punch in the face, the stench of decay cutting through the scent of soap to remind a man that the world was a graveyard. Nowadays, since death had become as much a part of their lives as living, the smell of it was always there.  Jean figured it was probably the worst drawback of allowing himself to indulge in such a long, hot--albeit temporary--escape from reality. Well, that and the possibility of having HQ seized in an undead attack while being naked and soaking wet.   
   
“You were gone long enough,” Roy muttered as Jean entered the room.  He held a bottle in each hand, his face stern with concentration as he contemplated whiskey or vodka.   
   
“I was hardly gone fifteen minutes,” Jean said, closing the door behind him.  And locking it.  While knocking was still considered a common courtesy in what was left of the world, emergencies usually rendered the practice null, as evidenced by the time Jean was almost caught with his head between Roy’s legs when Breda came barging in to tell them that a group of defenseless civilians were approaching the perimeter with a throng of living dead in pursuit.   
   
Finally settling on the whiskey, Roy opened the bottle and took a swig.  Glasses, while nice, were a long abandoned formality. He turned to Jean and offered him a drink. “Twenty,” he countered.  
   
Jean crossed the room and took the bottle. “Did you miss me?”  
   
Roy shook his head, his lips curving upward ever so slightly at the accusation, and Jean felt that… _thing_ … he always felt when he and Roy were alone together, shut out from the others, free, however momentarily, of the responsibility of saving the world. The man in front of him was no longer Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist. He was just Roy.  _His_ Roy.   
   
“That nest you refer to as hair is dripping all over the place,” his Roy said, walking over to his cot and taking a seat.   
   
Biting back a smile of his own, Jean yanked the towel from around his shoulders and draped it over his hair, which was still a fair bit damp. He joined Roy and sat on the floor, nudging himself comfortably between the other man’s outstretched legs.  Jean said nothing of the hands that took the towel and began scrubbing his hair dry, opting instead to drink in silence (he personally preferred vodka but this would do) while absentmindedly stroking the top of Roy’s foot with his free hand.   
   
These moments, as simple as they seemed, were a far cry from the rather unexpected beginnings of their relationship.  At first, Jean wasn’t even sure if their couplings even qualified as such. Before the dead decided to stop being so dead, all Jean had known of Roy’s predilections was based on the image that the man had successfully conveyed to everyone--a ladies man without equal. Yet for being such a chick magnet, he had had no problem at all with being fucked over his desk that first time. Even though they had both consumed an ungodly amount of alcohol that night, Jean remembered it all too well: they had been discussing the state of the world, as usual, when a lull in the conversation led to an exchange of skeptical glances which led to a sudden and desperate whiskey-tinged kiss, culminating in a newfound use for Roy’s desk. Hesitant to get his hopes up, Jean had chalked it all up to a regrettable result of inebriation… until it happened again. And again. And so on. Now here they were. Still.  
   
Maybe it was just a whim on Roy’s part. After all, people did all sorts of contrary things during wartime.  And while their enemy was unlike anything they had ever known, this was a war all the same.  Maybe when it was over--if it was ever going to be over--Roy would go back to being the Roy that Jean thought he had known and everything between them would be put to rest along with the corpses.  Maybe.  Or maybe not.  Either way, Jean didn’t care to think about it.  Not because it was a distraction he could do without, though there was that.  But also because he wasn’t ready to acknowledge that… _thing_ … for what it really was.  
   
Or the fear he had of losing it.   
   
“What is our favorite lunatic doing tonight?” Roy asked minutes later, breaking the silence.  He tossed the towel aside and grabbed Jean’s cigarettes and an ashtray, and traded him those for the bottle.  
   
“Being a pain in my ass, same as always.”  Jean lit himself a smoke and took a long, hard drag.  “He sends his love, by the way.”  
   
“Asshole.”  
   
Jean chuckled around the butt of his cigarette.  “Yeah, but he’s a useful asshole.”  
   
Grunting his disapproval, Roy took another drink.   
   
“Speaking of Kimblee and our impending field trip,” Jean continued, tapping ash into the ashtray.  “As you already know, we’ll have pretty much hit everything within a four town radius.  I really think we need to look at fortifying a place farther out--”  
   
“No.”  
   
“Roy--”  
   
“ _No,_ Jean.”  
   
It wasn’t often that Roy referred to him by his first name, even in private.  But Jean would have to celebrate a little later.  He stubbed out his cigarette and asked, “Why not?”  
   
“It’s not that I don’t agree with you, because I do,” Roy began with a sigh.  “But we don’t have nearly enough reliable manpower to set up shop somewhere out there without spreading ourselves thin, and I won’t risk dividing our numbers in the event of a full scale attack.  Besides, even if every single person in this building was an expert marksman, the only one I would even trust to head that sort of thing is you… and I need you here.”  
   
“Because you would miss me, right?”  
   
“Shut the hell up.”  
   
Grinning, Jean let his head fall back and come to rest against Roy’s crotch.  He knew Roy had answered in a strictly professional manner but still couldn’t resist poking fun.    
   
Oh well, the debate could wait.  Right now, all Jean wanted…  
   
“Kiss me, Roy.”  
   
… was this.   
   
Roy cupped Jean’s chin, tilted his head back a little more, and did as he was told.   It was awkward from that particular angle but nice.  Very nice.  
   
After they parted, Jean pulled him to the floor.  
   
At some point, the bottle of whiskey fell over, soaking the carpet.  
   
Neither man noticed.  
   
*****  
   
Greed was annoyed as all hell.   
   
There he was, a survivor in the midst of an apocalypse with almost everything he could possibly want lying around for the taking except a goddamn fucking vehicle.   
   
Wait.  That wasn’t exactly correct.  
   
There were actually _plenty_ of cars strewn about but do you think he could find a goddamn fucking set of keys to any of them?  Hell no!  This meant that somewhere out there, a bunch of dead bastards were shuffling around with keys in their pockets.  And since he was a Homunculus and not a mechanic, he knew shit all about fiddling under the hood to do whatever was required to start a car without a key.   
   
In other words, he was fucked.  
   
“Fuck!” he roared, slamming the door to the latest car that had failed his inspection.  The damn thing had had a dead dog in it, bloated to the point of bursting after being trapped inside of a car with closed windows for who knew how long, but keys?  Negative.  
   
Hell with it.  There was no point in stewing over it any longer, not when the dusk was fast giving way to full on darkness.  He could already hear them in the distance, not close but not as far away as he would have liked, and so it was best to find a place to hole up for the night.   
   
Luckily, he was in an area that gave him many options.   
   
And naturally, he picked the place where he was most likely to find some alcohol, piss warm though it might be.   
   
The bar was just about the size of the Devil’s Nest, although not as… aesthetically challenged.  After checking every inch of the place for unexpected company--and finding only the remains of a man with a large hole in his head and a gun at his feet--Greed released his Shield, grabbed a bottle of vodka and a handful of stale pretzels, reconsidered the pretzels and opted against them, then made himself comfortable in one of the booths along the far edge of the bar, one in which he had full view of the door.  It was hardly luxurious, but it would do long enough for him to get a halfway decent buzz in peace.   
   
He thought about his objective as he drank.  From a rational viewpoint (and he was perfectly capable of thinking rationally, even if he often chose not to act in such a manner) what he was doing was madness, pure and simple.  Why else would anyone willfully trek through whatever atrocities awaited to kill a man who might already be dead?  Wouldn’t it just be easier, safer, to find a little corner of the lost world to call his own and be done with it?  Sure it would.  Hell, that even sounded appealing.   
   
But it was the idea of doing so while there was a chance that man was still alive, however remote… _that_ was the thought driving Greed to embark on this journey, the thought that would not allow him to rest until he knew for sure.  Kimblee was a resourceful fucker, and an alchemist to boot.  Greed would actually be surprised if Kimblee was dead--as well as disappointed, because oh how he wanted to rip out that deceitful bastard’s insides with his own claws.   
   
He upended the bottle and drank some more.  When he was finished, he slammed it onto the table, let out a stinging belch, and propped up his legs.  As the sky darkened outside and his boredom intensified, Greed retracted his previous observation because he realized that there was, in fact, something else he was severely lacking since this whole clusterfuck began: sex.  He would've given just about anything for a good piece of ass right now, if only to pass the time.  But, much like a goddamn set of car keys, women were nowhere to be found.  (Or men, but he didn’t care to dwell on the implications behind that particular thought for very long.)   
   
So what was a bored and now horny Homunculus to do?  
   
He leaned back, shoved his hands between his legs, and unzipped his pants.  
   
Why, he would improvise, of course.   
   
*****  
   
“Havoc.”  
   
“Hm?”  
   
“We’re almost out of ‘supplies.’”  
   
Jean smiled against Roy’s shoulder.  He couldn’t remember which one of them had first started referring to condoms as supplies, but it never failed to humor him, even to the point where he once found himself dangerously close to laughing when they were talking to Breda and Fuery and the word made its way into whatever conversation was taking place.   
   
It would be tricky going, procuring said supplies.  At least when it came to the question of lube, there were… alternatives.  But he couldn’t just waltz into the Health and Beauty section of whatever store they were looting and load boxes upon boxes of condoms into one of the bags.  Not that they really even needed them because it wasn’t like Roy was going to get pregnant (and if he did, there were far bigger issues in the world than zombies).  Using them was more for the sake of convenience because Jean was pretty sure that having to suddenly fend off an impromptu horde of creatures while holding in someone else’s release was far from the most comfortable feeling in the world.  
   
“I’ll see what I can do,” he promised.  He tightened his hold around Roy, ignoring the way the cot creaked because he dared to move.  It was no wonder they did nothing more strenuous than cuddle on the damn thing, not that Jean’s was any better.  But Jean had not, as of yet, come up with a perfectly logical-sounding reason to explain to the others why they needed an actual bed in Roy’s office.  Until he did, they would just have to stick with fucking on the floor.   
   
He wanted a cigarette, but not at the cost of letting go of Roy, and so he remained right where he was, breathing in the clean scent of his lover’s tousled hair.  Jean found that there were things he wanted to say and ask during these quiet times but to do so might have damaged whatever unlikely bond it was that held them together.  The world was a hellhole, people were dead and dying, so it was best, he concluded, to shut the hell up and enjoy their time together, such as it was.   
   
That was why he was completely astounded when Roy spoke up some time later.  Not because he did, but because of what he said:  
   
“It’s my fault.”  
   
Jean waited to see if Roy would say something else.  Eventually, he did.  
   
“You’re not going to tell me I’m wrong?”  
   
Jean took a deep breath.  He hated that they weren’t face to face.  But then again, that they weren’t was probably the reason Roy had even dared to bring up the subject of Riza to begin with.  
   
“She made a choice,” he began slowly, thinking over his words.  “One she felt she had to make.  She was… she _is_ and has always been very devoted to you.  But we’re soldiers, Roy.  That’s what we do.  It’s all a part of the job and it’s the risk we take.”  
   
“Her feelings for me are more than devotion.”                                   
   
“… I figured as much.”  
   
“All those years, I knew it. I even flirted with her every now and then for my own amusement, and all the while, I knew.”   Roy let out a harsh sigh before continuing. “Now she’s out there, dead for all we know, because instead of being up-front with her, I used her feelings to placate my own fucking ego.”  
   
“Roy…”  
   
“And don’t tell me that she would have done the same thing regardless because you don’t know that.”  
   
Jean had heard enough.  “Look at me.”  
   
For one dreadful moment, he thought Roy would refuse, clam up, and that would be that.  But then, with more than a little effort, he turned around.  And while the cot groaned in protest, it miraculously held up.  Roy’s expression held no self-pity.  Regret and weariness, yes, but no self-pity.  This was good.  
   
It was still a strange thing for Jean, staring directly into his eyes when they were so close together.  The sex was easy.  Eye contact, as it turned out, was far more nerve-racking.   
   
“That… that was a bad day,” he said, thinking back to the insanity.  “I believe she did what she felt she needed to do to save you.  And if Kimblee hadn’t intervened--in the worst possible way--I would have done something similar.  The others, too.  So yeah, I do think she would have done the same thing if you had been straight with her from the start.  But she’s not the only one who would be so quick to die for you, Roy.  Remember that.”  
   
Jean paused, trying hard not to fidget under the weight of Roy’s stare.  It wasn’t accusatory or doubting, but its intensity made him uncomfortable all the same.   
   
Finally, Roy gave him a slight nod.  And while Jean was not quite sure if it was in agreement or resignation, either way, it seemed to signal the end of their talk.  
   
“I’m tired,” Roy announced out of the blue.  “I’m going to sleep.”  
   
He flipped back over--Jean gave the cot another month, tops--and pulled Jean’s arm around him.  While the cots were hardly suitable for one grown man let alone two, fewer and fewer were the nights that they actually slept apart anymore.  Jean didn’t mind one bit; a little stiffness and soreness was a small price to pay for the privilege of having Roy sleep in his arms, snoring, kicking, and all.  
   
“Goodnight, Havoc.”  
   
“Goodnight, Chief.”  
   
Roy turned and craned his neck, and Jean leaned forward to kiss him.  
   
Then the alarms began to sound, jolting them both back to the grim reality of their surroundings.  
   
Somewhere, someone was screaming.  
   
This was not a drill.  
   
*****  
   
This time, Barry was annoyed as all hell.  
   
Given the severe overabundance of all the new victims at his disposal, he had been in such a hack-happy stupor that he was genuinely shocked when his beloved cleaver finally had enough.  One minute, the blade was burrowing with awful goodness into the generous gut of an obese man-thing who had not possessed the good manners to stay dead, spilling intestines onto the ground below, and the next thing he knew, the blade had decided to stay put, leaving Barry holding the hilt and nothing more.  It was tragic, really.  He had adored that cleaver very much and was doubtful that he would ever find another one exactly like it.   
   
But he was damn sure going to try.   
   
He meandered through the empty meat market--which, amazingly enough, still had electricity--and was thankful that he did not possess the ability to smell the rotted remains of the cow and pig parts that dangled from hooks through the open door of a walk-in freezer.  The display case was no better, where rows upon rows of meat were covered in maggots and flies.   
   
Barry made his way behind the counter and immediately spotted what he was looking for.  The cleavers weren’t quite up to par with his dearly departed, but they would have to do until he could find something a little more up his alley.  He grabbed one in each hand and stepped into the freezer, having decided to give them a test run on a carcass… but he was soon interrupted by an eerie feeling of duality as his body kept walking while his head flew forward until it hit the floor with a loud clang against the tiles.   
   
“What the hell?” Barry yelled, staring at his own legs.   
   
“I think I should be asking that question.”  
   
“Who said that?”  Barry’s body spun around, leaving Barry’s head to fend for itself.  “I’ll cut you to pieces!”  
   
“Is that so?  Maybe you should pick up your head before you try.”  
   
“Shut up!  I know that!”   
   
Barry willed his body to retrieve him.  Then, with his head back on straight, he turned toward the sound of the mystery voice and raised his cleavers, ready to strike--  
   
His assailant pounced again, fast as lightning and nothing more than a blue blur, hogtying him and sending his entire body crashing to the floor in a heap.  For Barry, it was a fitting end to a shitty day.  
   
“Damn it!”  
   
“Why don’t you calm down and listen to me?”  
   
“Why don’t you kiss my metal ass?”  
   
“This is going to be so much fun.”   
   
Barry stopped just as he was about to invite the unseen stranger to do something incredibly inappropriate with one of the cleavers as penance for such scathing sarcasm.  Up until now, he had been entirely too scandalized over being manhandled to really think about the situation.   
   
But see, that was the thing.  
   
He hadn’t been _man_ handled at all.  
   
“You’re a woman,” he said.  
   
“Thanks for noticing.”  
   
“And you’re not dead.”  
   
“Right again.”  
   
“What are you doing all the way out here?”  
   
First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye emerged from the shadows and knelt beside Barry.  Her uniform was a tattered and bloody mess, and her hair and face were caked with dirt, but her eyes were still alight with a fierce determination few could match.  
   
“I’m trying to get home,” she said.  “And you’re going to help me.”


	5. "Breach"

In a world where the walking dead were a gruesome commonplace, it was the tragically unnecessary loss of _human_ life that still hurt, still threatened to break a man, right down to what was left of his already battered core. 

Especially when that man was the one responsible for ending it. 

Jean wondered if Roy had felt the same agonizing despair over such an unenviable task, back in the days when war between men seemed a sickeningly joyful alternative to the present state of the world.  He would ask him one day, when and if things were ever normal again.  But for now...

“What’s your name, soldier?”

The man on the floor of the supply closet turned his head and coughed up an astonishing amount of blood which splattered onto the ground beside him.  “Douglas, Sir,” he croaked.  “Ryan Douglas.”

Jean knelt down a few feet in front of him, his arms resting against his thighs, his grip on the handgun lax.  The time had not come to use it.  Not yet.

He gazed at the man whose head lolled against the wall behind him.  The soldier appeared to be somewhere in his thirties, a decent, stand-up looking guy with short brown hair and hazel eyes glossed over with the pain of being eaten alive. 

“Ryan.”  Jean cleared his throat, swallowing down bile.  Now was not the time to falter.  “I need to know… how you want it.”

Ryan glanced at the gun in Jean’s hand.  His chest hitched once, and something vital shattered within Jean.  First Falman, and now this.  It was too much.  Too big.  Too fucking _awful_. 

“Wait,” he said, coughing again.  “Just… wait until… after.  Please.  I don’t… I don’t want to know it’s coming.”

“… Okay.”

His was the piercing scream that Jean and Roy had heard right before all hell broke loose and the secure confines of HQ were proven to be way less secure than they had imagined.  For all of their precautions, one of the men had become infected at some point and hidden it from the others until... this.  Now three people were dead.  And one was dying. 

Jean spoke to him calmly, soothingly, until his breathing first became erratic and then ceased altogether.  And much like with Falman, he detected a distinct and indescribable change in the air upon Ryan’s death, some terrible and awesome thing that defied understanding.  Was he bearing unseen witness to the departing of a soul?  Jean did not know.  And for the moment, he did not care.  The only thing that _was_ real right now was the gun in his hand, and he slipped his finger over the trigger, readying himself to fire.

Ten seconds passed.  Twenty.  Thirty.  A lifetime.  Still, Jean waited.  At sixty seconds, a low, ominous rumble sounded from the depths of the body before him. Half a minute later, fingers began to move, slowly at first, and then opening and closing jerkily, clutching at nothing.  Finally, two minutes after the man named Ryan Douglas died, a wretched thing bearing his face turned to look at Jean.  It had barely opened its mouth to hiss or scream or make whatever other ungodly noise it intended before most of its brain and skull plastered the wall behind it, courtesy of a bullet between its dead hazel eyes. 

Jean covered his face with his hand.  He kept it there, even after hearing the door to the closet open and footsteps came to a halt directly behind him.

“Havoc.”

Usually, the sound of Roy’s voice was enough, all he needed or wanted, the calm in all the madness.  But again, not yet.  He wanted to hate himself for what he had done, though out of necessity, for a little while longer.  It was the least he could do.

“Is everyone together?” he asked sometime later.

“Yeah.”

Jean nodded.  He stood up, shoved the gun into the waistband of the pants he had hastily thrown on when the trouble started, and headed for the exit.

“Hey.”  Roy grabbed his arm, stopping him. 

“This shit’s never going to end, is it?” Jean asked suddenly, speaking more to himself than his partner.

“I don’t know, Jean.”  Roy stared at him, his eyes full of sad and horrible knowing.  “… I don’t know.”

*****

Miraculously, there was something edible to be found in the meat market.  After carefully removing the moldy bits, Riza gnawed on a piece of age old, rock hard bread until she finally managed to bite off a piece of it.  It tasted like shit, but it would have to do for now.  She had eaten far worse in her time away from HQ, but did so without hesitation in order to survive. 

“So you were just wandering around out there, chopping up those things?” she asked, looking at her new traveling companion.  “Why?”

Barry gasped, comically offended.

“Because I’m Barry _the Chopper_ ,” he explained as if speaking to someone of diminished intellect.  “That’s what I do.”

“How silly of me not to know that,” Riza mumbled.

“I know,” Barry agreed.

The woman shook her head, reluctantly humored.  She took a swig of warm water, cringed, and resumed gnawing.  “And they don’t bother you?”

“Nope.  It’s like I’m not even there.”  Barry inspected his new cleaver and gave a few courtesy strikes to the air, testing it out.  “Not having a body does have its advantages.”

“Apparently.”  Riza had suspected as much when Roy once made a seemingly offhanded comment about Al's emptiness, but now that Barry had confirmed the theory, she realized just how lucky she was to have happened upon him.  He was going to be--already _was_ \--a right pain in her ass.  But if he could keep her alive, then she would gladly endure his antics. 

“And what about you?” Barry asked, his beady glowing eyes shining brightly within the darkness of his eye sockets.  “How the hell did you end up out here?”

“My team was attacked,” she said.  “I was separated from them.”

Of course she neglected to mention that the separation was voluntary, that she had done so to save them. Specifically _him_. 

Giving up on the bread, Riza carefully set it aside.  It was to be her breakfast come morning, after all.  She walked over to Barry, waited patiently for him to stop swinging his cleaver about like an idiot, and then snatched off his head without warning.

“Hey!”  Barry’s body flailed.  “What the hell are you doing?”

“Making sure that you don’t take off.”   Riza turned out the lights and stretched out on the dirty floor, using his head as the worst pillow ever.  “You may as well have a seat.  We’re not moving out until sunrise.”

“You could have just asked nicely, you know,” Barry muttered, unwillingly willing his body into submission.

Riza watched as the barely discernible outline of a bulky and headless form folded its arms, stomped once in petulant defiance, and plopped down to the floor.  In a surreal world, it was probably one of the most surreal things that she had ever seen. 

“Goodnight, Barry.”

“Bite me.”

“No thank you.”

Riza closed her eyes, one hand curled around her handgun--one clip left, not good at all--and the other curled around Barry’s head.  Sleep would be a long time coming as it had been most nights, but for the first time since she last saw Roy and the others, a small sliver of hope emerged. 

She was going to make it back to them. 

Or die trying.

*****

“Sh-Sh-Should I t-take off my u-underwear, too?”

If not for the utter seriousness of the situation, Jean would have been amused.  He thought back to a conversation he had once had with Roy, Breda, and Falman about whether or not Kain Fuery was a virgin, almost going so far as taking bets.  They all ended up having a hearty chuckle over the matter.  Good times.  So long ago. 

It was fairly obvious that the man had never, until this very moment, been half-naked in front of anyone other than himself, let alone done anything more.

“You’re fine, Fuery,” he said, giving him a quick yet thorough once-over, front and back, as he had every other member of their unit.  His pale body was thankfully without any questionable scratches or bites or marks of any kind.  All clear. “Go ahead and get dressed. And send in the Colonel, please.”

“Y-Yes, Sir.”

Jean leaned back against the bathroom sink and lit a cigarette.  He dragged deeply and exhaled at the ceiling as Roy entered the room.

“How’d it go?”

“Breda has a hickey,” Jean said.  “I don’t even want to know.”

Roy smirked.  “Same here.”

Jean took another drag.  “Other than that, yeah.  Everyone’s good.”

“Well… we haven’t checked _everyone_.”

Jean glanced at Roy.  Then he realized what the man was saying.

“ _Goddamnit_.”

“I’ll go,” Roy offered.

“No way,” Jean said with a firm shake of the head.  “The two of you alone in a room together?  Not a good idea.”

He pushed himself off the sink and extinguished his cigarette under running water before pitching it into a toilet.  “May as well get it over with.” 

“All right.”  Roy pulled his glove from his pocket and held it in his hands.  “Then I’ll take care of the bodies.”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah.  I don’t want this hanging over anyone’s head tomorrow.”

Jean strongly believed that tonight’s tragedy would be hanging over _all_ their heads tomorrow regardless, but he chose not to share his opinion.  “Okay,” he said instead.  “I’ll see you when you get back.”

The lovers stared at one another, both wanting to say more, to _do_ more.  In the end, Jean simply nodded and exited the bathroom, then made his way toward the last place he wanted to be for the second time that night.

*****

“Lieutenant Havoc.  Did you miss me already?”

“Fuck off.”

Zolf Kimblee smiled his eerily charming smile and stood back so that Jean could enter his abode.  “To what do I owe the honor of an encore?” he asked, closing the door.  “It wouldn’t have anything to do with all of the excitement I heard earlier, would it?”

While Jean was usually not big on full disclosure where Kimblee was concerned, he wanted to get this done as quickly as possible so that he could call it a night.  Again.

“One of the men was bitten.  We don’t know when or how it happened.  He turned and attacked three others.  Two died instantly, and then we--”

“Killed them again?” Kimblee offered.

“Yes. Along with the one who started it all. One man managed to hold on, but... I took care of that.”

Kimblee walked over to the window and peered out into the night.  “Tell me something, Lieutenant.  Did you wait until he changed before shooting him?  Because if you didn’t…  Well, I hardly see how that makes us any different.”

“Kimblee…”  Jean paused when he realized that his hands were balled into fists.  He was appalled by the suggestion, incorrect as it was, that he had anything in common with him.  But as tempted as he was to defend his honor, by force if necessary, he knew better than to engage him.  It would not end well, for anyone. “Take off your clothes.”

The alchemist spun around, his face shocked yet interested. 

“We’re checking for bites,” Jean explained.  “I don’t know how long this thing can… incubate…or whatever… but I’m not taking any chances.”

“Oh.” Kimblee was clearly disappointed in the reason.  “Here I was, thinking that you wanted something else.”

_“No.”_

“Too bad.  And I suppose you’ll punish me if I don’t comply?”

“If by punish you mean shoot, then yes.  Yes, I will.”

Kimblee grinned and began unbuttoning his shirt.  “There you go again, threatening to do things to me with your big gun.  If I didn’t know any better, I would almost think it a euphemism.”

Disgusted by the very thought, Jean clenched his teeth and waited with the patience of a saint as Kimblee made a slow, teasing show of stripping down to a pair of obscenely tight boxer briefs. 

“Leave those on,” Jean clarified.

“As you wish,” Kimblee said.  “I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.”

Lighting another cigarette, Jean carefully approached the other man and inspected his body, ignoring Kimblee’s lecherous gaze.  How the hell was it that he was the one who felt like he was on display when that bastard was the one who was undressed?

“Turn around,” he ordered.

Kimblee did so, sweeping his long hair over his shoulder to give Jean full view of his flawless back. 

“Done.”

“Was it as good for you as it was for me?” Kimblee asked, grabbing his pants from the cot.

“Goodnight.” Jean turned to leave--

“By the way.  Is our date still on for the day after tomorrow?”

Jean sighed.  _God_ how he hated that man!

“As far as I know right now, yes,” he replied, not even bothering to correct him.  “You will be informed if plans change.”

He made it to the door and was reaching for the knob when Kimblee called out to him again.

“ _What is it_ , Kimblee?”

The silence that followed was such that Jean turned around, prepared to repeat himself… and found the alchemist looking at him in a way that was unsettling. Not in the usual way that Kimblee had, the way that made Jean feel like he needed an hour long shower, but ... seriously. Almost profoundly, even.

“You cannot save them all.  And that poor fellow with the hole in his head will not be the last one of your men to become acquainted with the end of your gun.”

“… I know that.”

Kimblee slipped into his pants.  “Do you?” he asked.  “Your glaringly obvious guilt says otherwise.”

“My guilt keeps me human, Kimblee.  _Sane_.”  Jean looked at the other man with bitter triumph.  “ _That_  is the difference between us.” 

Kimblee smiled again.  It was a fascinating and vexing thing.  “If you say so.  Goodnight, Lieutenant Havoc.”

“… Goodnight.”

Jean left the room and took off down the hall, shaking his head and once again trying to make sense of it all. 

*****

He had been dreaming of the others.  His sibling Sins.  All of them now very much dead.  But then the crashing of glass and shuffling of feet and moaning of the dead jolted him out of a sound sleep and he had barely managed to avoid detection.  The bitch of it was that they were blocking the main exit.  The even bigger bitch of it was that even if he had wanted to leave the bar using a rear exit, there would likely be more of them out there, wandering around aimlessly.

Greed raised his Shield and silently slid out of the booth.  He had no idea if those fucking things could see well in the dark but damned if he was about to do anything to draw attention to himself.  He counted off five of them trudging about, bumping into each other while trying to locate the source of that smell: _him_. 

_Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!_

He took a cautious step backwards, keeping his sharp eyes trained on the crowd and weighing his options.  If he could get rid of all of them without alerting the masses, then he could barricade himself somewhere in the back until morning or they moved on, whichever came sooner. 

Another step.  Although he could barely hear his own footfall, it sounded deafening all the same.  One of the walkers, something that used to be a woman--and a halfway decent looking one at that--turned in Greed’s general direction but did not appear to notice him.  The Homunculus risked another step, and then another, gingerly easing his way back until he made it to the pool table.  He grabbed the cue stick off the top, wondered briefly if the last person who used it had won his game, and then took a deep breath, preparing himself for what he was about to do.

“Psst.  Hey you.  Dead chick.”

Crazily, although somehow not surprisingly, Greed was smiling.  He smiled as the dead woman came after him and he smiled even more as he snapped the stick into two sharp, jagged halves and plunged one directly into her left eye as far as it would go.

Eyeballs made the most godawful noise when punctured. 

Before the dead woman could even hit the ground, Greed turned on her companion, who had stumbled over to them to check out the situation, and he dispatched of him just as quickly.

Three to go.  Fortunately, they hadn’t the first clue that their two pals just had their brains scrambled.  Then again, they hadn’t the first clue about a lot of things.

Greed pulled the sticks out of the heads of the fallen and casually slung off the matter that stuck to them, then he moved in on the others.  He killed two more--one was no more than eighteen and that _almost_ felt kind of shitty--before waiting for the final creature to lurch his way, desperate for a bite.  Just like he had back at the Devil’s Nest, Greed allowed it a taste of his Ultimate Shield before seizing it tightly in his grip.  But instead of just dislocating its mandible, Greed ripped it off _completely_ , and it hit the floor with a chunky wet thump along with its owner. 

He surveyed the carnage, satisfied.  And no more uninvited guests stopped by.  Better still.

Okay, enough bullshit.  It was time to keep the dead guy in back company for the night. 

Greed contemplated grabbing a fresh bottle of booze first, as he had already polished off the vodka responsible for his careless slumber.  Maybe some rum this time around.  He did like a little variety.  And all of that killing had left him pretty parched.

He popped open a bottle and sniffed.  This would do.

Greed released his Shield, upended the bottle, and took a generous swig.

He never saw the _sixth_ one crawling on the floor toward him…

*****

Jean was sitting on the floor with a half-empty bottle of whiskey when Roy finally returned smelling like soap and burnt flesh.  The latter never really went away, no matter how much one scrubbed.

Roy sat down beside him, and Jean handed him the bottle while lighting a cigarette.  After taking a long drink, Roy helped himself to some of that, too. 

And so they smoked and they drank and they didn’t speak. 

When they were finished, Roy pulled Jean down into his arms. 

There were no words in any language that could compare to that.

*****

Greed’s boot was coated with the remains of the thing that he had stomped to a chunky stew of blood and bones. And his shin was bleeding from its bite.

Now even more of them filtered into the bar, drawn by the commotion that he had caused in his rage.

“All right, assholes,” Greed growled.  “You want me?  Come and get me.”

He waited, claws at the ready.

The monsters paused upon sensing his presence.  And then...

_They walked away_.

*****

Jean and Roy finally fell asleep, wrapped around each other. 

In six hours, a new day would dawn.

In less than forty-eight, they would encounter a horror the likes of which they had never seen before, one that would make tonight's events seem like a pleasant dream.

 


	6. "Hope and Horror"

After a night of restless sleep, Riza opened her eyes.  She winced when she realized that she was going to be dealing with a rather considerable pain in her neck.  
  
“It’s _about time_ you woke up!”  
  
And her ass.  
  
She sat up with a grunt, ignoring the ranting of the headless body of armor sitting across from her.  Judging by the quality of light, what little of it there was, Riza guessed that it was still pretty early.  Early enough to cover some serious ground if they headed out at a decent hour.  She rubbed at her neck, hoping to coax out the stiffness, and finally acknowledged the flailing heap of metal.  
  
“Good morning, Barry.”  
  
“Don’t good morning me, lady.”  Large and bulky arms reached out to her, hands grasping greedily at thin air.  “Look, I’m still here, aren’t I?  I didn’t chop you up while you were sleeping, did I? _Now give me back my head!_ ”  
  
Riza opted not to point out that at no time during the night would he have ever been able to get away with attacking her without being annihilated.  Let him have his fantasies. However, she _was_ grateful that he had stayed.  Even if he didn't have much of a choice.  
  
She looked down at the head that was sitting beside her.  The _back_ of the head, that was, as during the night she had become somewhat off-put by Barry's leering and turned it around to face the wall.  She picked it up and tossed it over to him, and hoped that doing so would buy her a few minutes of peace and quiet.  
  
Of course she should have known better.  
  
“Don’t ever do a thing like that again!” Barry screeched as he put his head on straight.  When that was done, he cradled his cleavers in his lap and stared creepily at his new friend.  “All right.  So where, _exactly_ , am I escorting you?”  
  
Riza tore off a small chunk of the bread that she salvaged from the night before, popped it into her mouth, and chased it with a sip of tepid water.  While it helped make chewing easier, unfortunately it did fuck all for the taste.  
  
“Eastern Command Headquarters,” she replied after forcefully swallowing the first bite.  
  
“Oh…” Barry took a sudden interest in the blade of one of his cleavers.   
  
“Oh, what?” Riza asked as she worked on another bite.  
  
“There might be a bit of a problem with that.”  
  
The soldier poured some water onto her palm and rubbed it over her face.  That was about all the hygiene she could afford at the moment.  “What’s the problem?”  
  
“Well, the fact that I’m something of a wanted mass murderer for starters.”  
  
“Because you’re Barry the Hacker,” Riza said, grossly unimpressed.  
  
_“Chopper!”_ Barry jumped to his feet with a thundering clank and struck the most ridiculous pose that she had ever seen.  “I’m Barry the Chopper!” he proudly proclaimed again, waiting for Riza to be awestruck.  
  
If yawning was an indicator of awe, then mission accomplished.  
  
“Whatever.”  Riza stood up and stretched, joints popping in protest.   “Anyway, we already have one of those.  A murderer, I mean.  Not a Chopper.”  
  
“Oooh.”  Barry perked up.  “Anyone I know?”  
  
“I doubt it.”  
  
Riza frowned as Kimblee’s face appeared in her mind, cocky and smug and with no remorse whatsoever for all the terrible things he had done over the years, _or_ the terrible things he had done since the world ended.  She hated that they had ever turned to him for assistance, but she also understood that a certain kind of insanity was useful during times like these.  The man served a genuine purpose, gruesome though it was.  
  
Perhaps this bumbling maniac could as well.  
  
*****  
  
It was a good thing that she hadn’t eaten much.  
  
“You’re not going to hurl in there, are you?” Barry asked.  
  
“I didn’t plan on it, but I’m not making any promises.”  
  
The overwhelming stench of the undead entrails that presently decorated Barry like a ghastly pageant sash made the rotting meat back at the market seem like a bouquet of roses in comparison.  After almost six hours, it wasn’t as bad as it had been, but it was still bad enough to nauseate.  Riza swallowed hard, trying not to think about the churning in her gut.  Being inside of Barry’s armor was like being trapped in a stinking coffin.  A stinking, _walking_ coffin.  
  
But the disguise, gross as it was, seemed to work like a charm.  Barry had been able to maneuver his way through random clusters of dead things with no difficulty at all, although he griped up a storm about not being able to kill at will, accusing Riza of robbing him of his livelihood.  
  
Riza’s response? “Tough shit.”  
  
That afternoon, they stopped at a house in an abandoned neighborhood.  Riza was tempted to keep going, but since there was no guarantee of finding secure shelter farther out, she begrudgingly consented.  Besides, the house had food (well, two ancient cans of beans hidden away in a web-ridden pantry) and a bed.  For Riza, it was practically a luxury.  
  
After climbing out of Barry’s armor, she helped him clean off the guts and settled down in the living room to rest her legs.  Although she hadn’t technically been the one doing all the walking, her muscles ached just the same.  Before they set off the next morning, they would once again have to find a “volunteer” and go through the whole disgusting ordeal of disemboweling it in order to mask her scent.  But hopefully, tomorrow would be the last time.  
  
With any luck, tomorrow she would finally be home.  
  
*****  
  
Roy found Jean in one of the rooms that housed, among other things, the riot gear that the soldiers wore during excursions outside of the perimeter.  He was standing near a row of crisp, brand new State uniforms that would very likely never be worn, smoking a cigarette and inspecting one of Kimblee’s plate armor gauntlets.  
  
“Hey.”  Roy approached him and grabbed the other gauntlet from the rack where they were kept when not in use.  He turned it over and stared at the hole in the palm of the iron glove, a hole that was large enough for Kimblee’s transmutation circle to make contact while leaving the rest of his hand shielded in the event of an attempted bite.  
  
“What’s up?” the blond man asked while testing each individual finger joint of the protective device.  
  
“Fucking Fullmetal...”  
  
Jean smiled around the butt of his cigarette.  It was not the first time that he had ever heard his partner refer to Edward Elric in such a way.  Nor would it be the last.  “What happened?”  
  
“He wants to go to Risembool,” Roy said.  “ _Again_.”  
  
“Ah.  Well…”  The lieutenant swapped gloves with Roy and continued his inspection.  “At least he’s actually telling you about it this time.”  
  
Roy sighed, remembering that last time.  The time when the world was still in a panic and Ed had blindly taken off by himself to Risembool to find the Rockbell girl and her grandmother.    Aside from being worried, Roy was furious with the boy for taking such a risk, understandable as it was.  But when Ed had returned, all of Roy's anger melted away.  The poor kid looked like he had gone through hell and back, and the last thing he needed on top of that was a lecture.  
  
Oh, Roy still ripped Ed a new one.  Just not on that day.  
  
“I can’t let him do it,” he said, shaking his head.  “It’s a miracle he came back last time.  Besides, the place was overrun, by his own admission.  There’s no guarantee that he would find anyone alive.”  
  
Satisfied that Kimblee’s gauntlets were battle-ready, Jean placed them back on the rack.  “You can’t blame him for wanting to know for sure.  It’s no different than what we’re doing for Hawkeye.”  
  
“There’s a big difference between sending Al to look for Hawkeye and letting Ed wander around by himself,” Roy pointed out.  
  
“Then let them go together,” Jean suggested.  “Those things didn’t even notice Al yesterday.”  
  
“Right.  They didn’t notice _Al_.” Roy shoved his hands into his pockets and sighed again.  “We don’t know what they might do if we sent him out there with Ed hiding in his armor.  They could tear both those boys apart.  I won’t take that kind of chance with their lives over the _possibility_ that someone might still be alive in Risembool.”  
  
“I could take a small team and go with them,” Jean offered as he pinched out his cigarette.  “All this time we’ve been moving toward the Central Area with these sweeps of ours.  Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to check out some of the locations farther south.”  
  
He kept right on talking, cutting off Roy's attempt at denial.  
  
“Besides, if he means to go then you know damn well that he’ll find a way to do it with or without your permission.  This way he’ll be safe.  And he’ll know for sure.”  Jean pointedly met Roy’s gaze.  “It’s a shitty thing, not knowing.”  
  
“… I’ll think about it.”  
  
Roy leaned against the closest wall and let his head fell back with a soft thud.  He did not object when smoke-scented fingers weaved through his dark hair.  
  
“The door’s unlocked,” he mumbled in warning, closing his eyes and leaning into Jean’s touch.  
  
“Then I guess you better stop me,” Jean replied as he moved in closer.  
  
The kiss was brief, no more than a peck.  But it was still more than the lovers usually risked outside of their own private room.   There was only one reason for that, neither spoken nor acknowledged, but all too real--Jean might not make it back tomorrow.  While the threat of their extinction was a daily concern, the times when they were apart, however noble the cause, were an especially grim reminder of all the things that could go wrong in an instant.  
  
Roy cleared his throat and moved away, reluctantly.  “I have to go.  Apparently we’re going to have our first baby.”  
  
_“What?”_  
  
Roy grinned at his reaction.  “It’s just been confirmed that one of the couples in the barracks is expecting.”  
  
“Really?”  Jean lit another cigarette while contemplating the news.  “That’s great,” he concluded with surprising sincerity.  
  
“Not quite the response I expected after last night,” Roy admitted.  
  
Jean shrugged and took a long drag.  “Life has to go on,” he said thoughtfully, exhaling smoke.  “If not, then what the hell are we doing this for?”  
  
Roy nodded, his eyes trailing over Jean's face.  He took the man's hand and helped himself to a hit off the cigarette. They remained that way, staring at each other with fingers intertwined, until Jean spoke again.  
  
“You should know, Sir, that I can't be held responsible for what I might do if you keep standing there and looking at me like that.”  
  
“Point taken.” Roy pulled free of Jean's grasp--again, reluctantly--and walked over to the door.  “Don’t forget, Fuery wants you there when he does the final radio test.  I don’t know if I’ll be able to join you, so be prepared to fill me in later if necessary.”  
  
A devious smile bloomed on Jean’s face.  “Oh, I had every intention of _filling you in_ later, Colonel.”  
  
“Havoc…”  The sternness of Roy’s voice was nullified by his inability to resist cracking a smile of his own.  “Get to work.”  
  
He stepped out of the room, still smiling.  
  
Jean was right.  Life had to go on.  
  
Although it would not go on for everyone, as tomorrow would tragically demonstrate.  
  
*****  
  
Greed stared at the monster in the mirror.  The monster that was wearing his face.  Or what _used_ to be his face.  
  
He blinked.  Blood red eyes blinked back.  
  
He tilted his head.  The monster followed suit.  
  
He touched a gnarled digit to his cheek.  The blotched and veiny cheek in the mirror split wide open and began to bleed.  
  
Greed turned away from the macabre caricature and stared at his surroundings.  His mind was an insufferable haze of white noise, and it took him a moment to understand what was going on.  
  
He was… he was in a place… a place where  
  
_food_  
  
people drank…  a bar.  Yes, a bar.  He was in a bar.  Something had happened… something bad… something painful.  
  
And then… this.  
  
Greed took a step and promptly fell against a nearby table.  He slowly pushed himself upright and stood in place, wavering as if  
  
_hungry_  
  
drunk.  After a while, he willed his legs to move and managed to make it to the open door without falling again.  And in one of the final flashes of coherence that the Homunculus would ever know, he suddenly remembered why he had been in the bar in the first place.  It wasn’t a destination, but a stop along the way.  
  
The destination was East Headquarters.  Because he was going to kill Zolf J. Kimblee.  
  
And not even a little inconvenience like dying was going to prevent him from doing it.  
  
Greed shuffled outside and saw them all wandering about.  
  
One stopped and turned to face him.  
  
Then another.  
  
And another.  
  
Then _all of them_ , as far as his dead eyes could see.  
  
Waiting.  _For him._  
  
Greed summoned his Shield.  For the last time.  
  
Then he began to stagger toward his destination.  
  
With an army in tow.


	7. (Bonus) "Before the Dawn"

The night was quiet, and eerily so.  However, Riza was not bothered by it at all.  After all the time she spent being subjected to the ghoulish serenade of the dead, even the creepiest of silences was a welcome change in routine.  The lack of noise also meant a lack of monsters wandering about in search of something to eat, and that was always a good thing.  
  
She was tempted to crack open the window in the master bedroom where she had finally settled in for the night, wanting to let in a wave of fresh air that would minimize the smell of mold and must that permeated the room, but she decided not to.  Even the slightest of sounds carried and she did not want to risk alerting even one of those things on the off-chance that it happened to be lurking in the area.  
  
Instead, she turned onto her side in the large bed, her toes digging into the mattress.  It was the first time that she had removed her boots in days—something she had not wanted to chance too often—and her feet were grateful for the breather.  She peered into the darkness of the room and immediately spotted the glowing eyes of a bodiless weirdo watching her.  
  
“You know it’s rude to stare.”   
  
“It’s also rude to go around stealing heads,” Barry shot back.  “But I guess you didn’t get that memo.”  
  
Maybe it was the fact that she was lying in a real bed for once or that her stomach was full of actual food or that she was growing more and more optimistic that she would make it back to HQ with her humanity intact, but whatever it was, Barry’s pissy retort caused the woman to smile.  It was a rare thing, even to those who knew her well, and it was lovely.  
  
“Fair enough.”  Riza slid her hand under the pillow until her fingers grazed her gun.  Not out of any perceived threat but purely out of instinct.   “So tell me something,” she said through an unexpected yawn.  “How is it that you are… the way you are?”  
  
It was a question she could not help but ask. She had the sneaking suspicion that Barry’s origins were far removed from Al’s.  
  
“Ask the fine folks at Lab 5 in Central,” Barry replied.  “They’re the ones who saw fit to do this to me.”  
  
Had the world not been overrun with creatures, Riza might not have believed him.  She was not naïve enough to think that the military she served was a faultless establishment, considering what she knew about the Ishbalan War.  Genocide was perfectly plausible, sadly enough, but the concept of soul tampering would have seemed too extreme once upon a time.  
  
Now?  Anything was possible.  Even the idea that the military might have been responsible for the plague presently destroying the planet was not so far-fetched in the dark of night.   
  
“Not that I’m complaining,” the large suit of armor continued, his tone disturbingly eager.  “Now I can kill as much as I want and I don’t have to worry about being eaten.”  
  
“Lucky for you.”  Riza found that she did not care to dwell too much longer on Barry’s fleshless existence.  When all was said and done, there was really very little point in doing so.  The ones responsible for creating this version of the killer were very likely dead anyway, and if things ever did return to normal, she knew that Roy would never allow such questionable practices to take place.  It was one of the thousand reasons that she had so willingly devoted herself to him, because he had seen firsthand the unethical things done for the supposed sake of the country and had vowed to one day take the reins and right all the wrong.  
  
She yawned again and closed her eyes, wondering what had become of her fellow soldiers at Central, the last known location of Maes Hughes and Alex Louis Armstrong.  There was another reason that Jean and Kimblee’s excursions were gradually extending in that direction, one that was far more important than that of gathering resources.  Communication had been severed with Central shortly after the chaos unfolded, leaving their fate unknown to everyone at East.  If Barry was telling the truth and he had indeed managed to escape from there then… well… that did not bode well.  But since Roy, being the consummate leader that he was, did not let his own apprehension over the well-being of his best friend show, then neither would Riza.  
  
“Goodnight, Barry.”  
  
“Shut up and go to sleep.”  
  
Riza smiled again as Barry rose to his feet and walked over to the window. He stared out at the nothingness, his cleavers grasped firmly in a tight grip.  It was oddly comforting, being under the reluctant protection of an unlikely sentinel, and Riza was able to fall into a deep and restful sleep for the first time in a very long time.  
  
Even so, she kept her right hand lodged under the pillow next to her gun.  Just in case.  
  
*****  
  
Gun oil was a necessity for the upkeep of weaponry.  
  
Over time, Jean learned that it was extremely useful for other things, too.  
  
He fingered Roy open with all the patience he could muster, three digits deep, twisting and curling and stretching.  Roy arched back against him, knees on the floor, ass in the air, and his face buried in the thin blanket that covered the carpet beneath them, a sight Jean would have given just about anything to see beyond shadows and outlines.  But he could feel him, tight around him, and that was enough.  
  
Jean let his free hand trail slowly down Roy’s back, running it along the man’s smooth skin and delighting in the shudder he felt beneath his fingertips.   Would that they had the time, he would have gladly spent hours on end doing nothing more than touching him all over, leaving no inch of his skin undiscovered.  But unfortunately, such was never the case, as the previous night demonstrated, and they had to take what they could get during what little alone time they had together in the event of sudden catastrophe.  
  
Maybe things would be different one day, when all the dying was done.  But for now, this would have to do.  
  
“Havoc,” Roy moaned as he fucked himself on Jean’s fingers.  “Hurry up.”  
  
Had Jean not been so blindly turned on by the sound of Roy’s desperation, he would have been amused.  Only Roy Mustang could still manage to be so commanding when he was aching to be fucked.  Jean pulled out his fingers and grabbed a condom, then tore it open and rolled it on.  He positioned himself behind Roy and grabbed him about the waist, whimpering as he eased his way inside, unable to help himself because every single time he did it felt as good as the first.  
  
Lowering himself along Roy’s back, Jean began fucking him slowly and deeply, taking him in long, hard thrusts.  His hands found Roy’s and their fingers intertwined, and Jean clamped down on the side of Roy’s neck, sucking on it, marking it.  Such intimate bruising was not something that Roy normally allowed him to do, but both men understood all too well the significance of the gesture during times like these, on the nights before Jean ventured out into the unknown.  
  
Roy pushed back against him and Jean recognized the cue.  He wrapped his strong arms around Roy’s stomach and pulled them both back until they were kneeling upright. From there, he cast aside his self-control and began fucking up into him hard and fast.  Roy grabbed onto his wrist and forced it downward, and Jean gladly seized the other man’s cock, squeezing the throbbing shaft in his hand, his thumb rolling over the smooth, slick tip. He started bucking his hips over and over, slamming up into the heat of Roy’s body, stroking and thrusting until Roy came into his hand with a poorly concealed cry.  Hearing Roy get off, feeling it around his cock and in his hand, and most of all, _best_ of all, knowing that he was the one making it happen was more than enough to send Jean soaring over the edge.  With one final, vicious thrust, he grunted sharply against Roy’s shoulder and came so hard that he thought he might black out.  
  
The two men remained that way afterwards, trembling and catching their breath, prolonging their inevitable separation as long as they were physically able.  Roy fell back against Jean, his head coming to rest on the other man’s shoulder, and Jean nuzzled into his dark hair, breathing it in and trying not to think about the reason why doing so made his heart ache just a little bit.  
  
Later, they fell to the floor in a sweaty, wet heap.  Jean discarded the condom and lit a cigarette, then propped himself up on the pile of pillows they had taken from both cots. He pulled Roy into a possessive half-embrace.  
  
“Want one?” he asked, offering him the pack.  
  
Roy shook his head and helped himself to a hit off Jean’s cigarette. “No, thanks. This is good enough.”  
  
They made small talk for a few more minutes, discussing mundane things like guns and alcohol and who the hell might have given Breda that hickey, all the while carefully avoiding the bigger issue of the next day.  When Jean was done smoking, he put out the cigarette and made himself comfortable as arms and legs wrapped around him.  The floor would suit them just fine tonight; at least they would be able to stretch out their limbs without fear of breaking one of the cots and crashing to the floor.  
  
“Goodnight, Chief,” Havoc said as his eyelids fluttered shut.  
  
“Hey, Havoc?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“… Don’t die.”  
  
Jean smiled warmly as a hand reached out in the darkness and found his, and the thing that he had tried so hard not to acknowledge came bursting forth, demanding recognition.  
  
He was in love with Roy Mustang.  Very simply.  And quite completely.  
  
“Okay.”  
  
Jean was not sure that it was a promise he could keep. But for Roy’s sake, he was damn sure going to try.  
  
Eventually, the lovers dozed, unaware of the hours that passed leading up to dawn or the legions of creatures headed straight their way, led by an unstoppable and undead Homunculus hell-bent on revenge.


	8. (Prequel Bonus) "The Gruesome Demise of Vato Falman"

The night was clear and starry, accentuated by a full moon that appeared far closer than usual. Jean Havoc peered out of the open window of the gun tower, his hand resting comfortably on the butt of the rifle at his side and his blue eyes regarding the serenity of all the nothing. He had yet to see a photo or a painting that captured the beauty of the real thing, a night like this in all of its breathtaking perfection.  
  
And with the human race on a seemingly unavoidable path towards extinction, he doubted that he ever would.  
  
He lit another cigarette--his seventh in under two hours--as the faint sound of ascending footsteps reached his ears. There was only one person it could have possibly been, and only one reason he could have possibly come to see him. Because of that, Jean felt no real need to turn around when the footsteps finally reached the top of the tower and came to a stop behind him. He already knew how this conversation was going to go, and he thought perhaps it was for the best that he did not look directly at him to have it.  
  
“Hey, Boss.”  
  
“Havoc.”  
  
While Roy Mustang’s voice sounded like business as usual, Jean could practically feel the man’s gaze on his back, sorting him out, trying to assess how best to proceed.  
  
“What brings you up here?” he asked, as if he did not already know.  
  
Jean remained facing forward as Roy came up beside him, his hands shoved deep into his pockets.  
  
“You’ve been volunteering for the night watch for almost a week now,” Roy pointed out.  
  
“Just about,” Jean agreed.  
  
“On top of your daily duties.”  
  
“Yes, Sir.” Jean took a hard drag on his smoke. “Right again.”  
  
With a heavy sigh, Roy turned around and leaned against the wall. Jean clenched his teeth, crushing the cigarette butt in the process and trying hard not to give into his desire to meet Roy’s eyes. Easier said than done.  
  
“You’ve made your point,” Roy said quietly. “How much longer do you plan on doing this?”  
  
Jean let loose a sigh of his own and silently cursed his heart for wanting to sway. That the officer had even bothered coming out there at all to talk to him… it was a big deal. Jean knew that very well and a part of him was elated by the gesture, especially in light of recent personal developments. But still…  
  
He plucked the cigarette from his mouth and tapped ash out of the window before responding.  
  
“I still think it’s a bad idea, Roy.”  
  
It was becoming easier for Jean to address him by his first name, although he still did not do it all the time. He supposed that it was only natural considering they were now more than superior and subordinate.  _Much_ more. Which made this particular situation even more difficult.  
  
“It was my decision,” Roy told him.  
  
“And you made that perfectly clear,” Jean replied, shaking his head. He was becoming agitated again, same as he had last week when Roy had harshly reminded Jean of his rank and place and then gave Falman the go-ahead to keep a violent, flesh-eating monster on the premises.  
  
“Listen, Havoc.” The authoritative tone was back. “You can’t do this. There’s no way you can function properly with two or three hours of sleep a night. You _need_ to get some rest. Even if you don’t want to sleep with…”  
  
Roy paused for a moment before trying again.  
  
“Even if you decide to sleep somewhere else. Just do it. That’s an order.”  
  
And with that, Roy left the tower. Jean pitched his cigarette out of the window and immediately reached for another one. He contemplated Roy’s words while he smoked, the things he said and the things he implied.  
  
Maybe it _was_ time for him to let it go. It was not the first time that he had ever disagreed with a decision Roy made and it most likely would not be the last. What was really the point of being spiteful about it? Life was far too short to hold a grudge. Especially these days.  
  
Jean pushed the thought aside for now and resumed his watch, counting off the minutes that felt like hours until the first hints of dawn finally became visible on the horizon. After he was relieved, he slowly made his way back inside HQ, walking the halls and saluting the early risers until he reached Roy’s office. He stepped inside and locked the door, and then quietly stifled a yawn as he stripped down to next to nothing.  
  
While his cot looked inviting--well, as inviting as it could considering the lack of actual beds--Jean crossed the room and crawled into the other one, the one with a lover wide awake and patiently waiting. A face nuzzled into his back and an arm wrapped around his chest and pulled him close, and for that one brief moment in time, all was right with the world.  
  
People were dead and dying, everything was falling apart around them, and there was no real hope in sight. But right now, lying in Roy Mustang’s arms was the only thing that mattered.  
  
*****  
  
When it happened, it happened _fast_.  
  
One minute, Jean was taking inventory of the ammunition and the next, he was being summoned by a frantic Kain Fuery. And what he saw when he made it to the lab was a sight he would never forget for the rest of his life. However short that might be and as much as he would have liked.  
  
There was blood everywhere, so much blood, splattered across the walls and the floor and the tables and the chairs in horrifying amounts, as far as Jean could see. And in the midst of all the gore were two bodies, one of them dead long before it was apparently killed again by way of a sound skull bashing.  
  
It was the monster. The bad idea. The reason that Roy had pulled rank to make Jean stand down. Somehow it had gotten loose from the restraints that bound it. And then…  
  
Chunks of bone and putrid brain fanned out around its head in a gory crown, and lifeless eyes stared at the ceiling, none the wiser. There was a microscope on the floor nearby, covered in bloody bits and pieces. Not as clean as a bullet would have been, but the end result was just the same. Speaking of bullets, there was a handgun lying in the corner of the lab where Jean presumed it had been flung during the encounter, hence the lack of gunfire that might have yielded a far different result than this.  
  
Jean’s heart sank when he spotted the mangled body of Warrant Officer Vato Falman. His comrade. His _friend_.  
  
“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no…”  
  
Falman was still breathing somehow, in spite of having been attacked and torn open and consumed. He was not conscious though, and for that, Jean was grateful. He could not even begin to imagine the kind of pain the man must have suffered while fighting for his life. Parts of his body never meant to see the light of day were spilling out of a gaping hole in his abdomen. His neck and face were ravaged with cuts. And scratches. And bites.  
  
The bites were the worst of all. For each one that marked the fallen man, there were… pieces of him… missing… some revealing the appalling glimmer of bone once concealed by flesh.  
  
“Goddamnit,” he muttered, passing his hand over his mouth, uncertain if he was going to vomit or scream or both.  
  
Only then did Jean realize that Fuery was still in the room with him, his eyes wide and his face deathly pale.  
  
“Where’s the Colonel?” he asked.  
  
“O-Over in the barracks,” Fuery replied, his tone indicative of a man trying desperately to keep it together.  
  
Jean had forgotten that Roy was making the rounds that day, meeting with the civilian survivors and reassuring them that the military was doing everything within their power to keep them safe.  
  
If only he could say the same thing for his own men…  
  
But never mind that. Jean could lament later. As for right now, he had a job to do.  
  
“Get Breda,” he instructed. “I want the two of you to lock down the floor. Keep it quiet if you can.”  
  
“Y-Yes, Sir.”  
  
“And radio Mustang,” Jean added. “Tell him that he’s needed for inspection.”  
  
_Inspection._ It was one of a series of code words to be used by the soldiers in the event of an interior breach, spoken in the presence of civilians in order to prevent panic. Since the very beginning of the outbreak, Jean had hoped that he would never have to use that word for anything aside from its literal meaning.  
  
Armed with a purpose, Fuery exited the room, leaving Jean alone with a dying man. The lieutenant walked over to Falman and kneeled down beside him. This was not going to be the first time that he had to put a man out of his misery, nor would it be the last. But it never got easier. And it never would.  
  
Never.  
  
Jean drew his gun. Slowly. Regrettably.  
  
“Falman…” He reached out and took the man’s blood-soaked hand. “If you can hear me… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry… for all of this.”  
  
Jean pressed the tip of the barrel against Falman’s temple…  
  
*****  
  
“Did you talk to Fuery?” Roy asked.  
  
Jean nodded. “He didn’t say anything that we couldn’t already figure out. The thing got loose and caught Falman off guard, which, best I can figure, is why he wasn’t able to use his gun. By the time Fuery found them, it was already too late.”  
  
Four hours ago, they had buried Falman in the makeshift graveyard behind HQ and burned the dead thing’s body to a crisp. Now, they were sitting on the floor of Roy’s office, leaning back against his desk and sharing a bottle of whiskey. Roy let his head fall back, and it struck the desk with a soft thump.  
  
“You’re not going to say it?”  
  
Jean plucked the bottle from Roy’s grip and took a long swig, welcoming the burn. “There’s nothing to say,” he insisted. “It’s done.”  
  
“But if I had just listened--”  
  
“It’s _done_ ,” Jean said again. “And it isn’t just on you. Falman had a hand in this, too. You didn’t hold a gun to his… You didn’t make him study that fucking thing. He chose to do it.”  
  
Jean returned the bottle to Roy and lit a cigarette.  
  
“We all have choices to make,” he continued. “You, me, all of us. Falman made his choice… just like Hawkeye made hers.”  
  
Jean felt a stab of guilt when he saw Roy’s jaw clench. It was one of the rare times that either of them had spoken of the missing woman.  
  
They both fell silent after that, drinking their drink and thinking their thoughts. After a while, Roy stretched out his feet, the heels of his boots digging into the carpet.  
  
“How are we looking on ammo?” he asked.  
  
It was one of Roy’s more admirable traits as a leader, pushing aside any possible despair to do what needed to be done. While Jean had no idea what sort of turmoil lurked beneath the calm facade, Roy’s ability to compartmentalize, to tuck away the tragedy and focus on the task at hand, made him an effective leader, the only one truly capable of getting them through the worst of times.  
  
“Pretty good,” Jean replied. “We should be set for a while if things stay quiet.”  
  
“That’s a big if,” Roy remarked.  
  
Jean shrugged. “Isn’t it always?”  
  
And just because he could, he cupped Roy’s face in his hand, his thumb smoothing over the other man’s cheek. The lovers stared at one another, their expressions saying all the things they could not yet say out loud.  
  
“Let’s go to bed,” Roy murmured, leaning into Jean’s touch.  
  
Jean smiled, something he would not have believed possible earlier that evening. “Yes, Sir.”  
  
They would not have sex. Not that night. But they would fall asleep in each others arms as they had the night before, and that would be enough.  
  
Jean dropped his cigarette into the bottle and rose to his feet, pulling Roy along with him.  
  
“Oh,” he said suddenly before rounding Roy’s desk and rummaging through the drawers until he found what he was looking for.  
  
“What are you doing?” Roy asked.  
  
Jean held up the black leather journal that Roy had never used.  
  
“Falman always said that it was a good idea to write everything down…”


	9. "First Sighting"

Greed was hungry. He was not consciously aware of the hunger, not in the general human sense of understanding. Then again, he was not consciously aware of many things. But the instinct to feed was strong, and as his unexpected entourage gorged themselves on the remains of twelve men and women who had put up a valiant yet futile effort to protect themselves against a surprise attack by the enormous herd of undead that happened upon them, his desire to join in on the feast was overwhelming.  
  
Yet he stood his ground as his companions reduced the bodies to skin and bone. Mostly bone. Because the one thing that he craved even more than sustenance was still out there, compelling him to move forward. Toward the man in white. The one who would die by his hands. Greed did not know much in his present state, but that one fact still lingered in what was left of his mind.  
  
_Kimblee._  
  
He opened his mouth and let out a throaty growl. It was the closest that he would ever come to speaking again but it was enough.  
  
Greed resumed his march as the others staggered and lurched into place behind him. There were so many of them now, and all of them inexplicably drawn to his otherness like moths to a flame, blindly following him wherever he went.  
  
Even in death, Greed’s senses were sharp, and he could smell the tantalizing scent of humanity in the wind that washed over his Ultimate Shield. They were getting closer now. He had no idea how close, and he did not care. He would walk as long as it took to find Kimblee and kill him. And no matter how unbearable the hunger became in the meantime, he would not eat until he succeeded in his goal.  
  
Greed’s first taste of human flesh would be that of a traitor.  
  
*****  
  
As Riza and Barry crossed the miles while coated in the remains of a thing that had once been a man and a small group of survivors were learning the hard way that bullets were useless against a zombie Homunculus and his many friends, Jean and his team were efficiently establishing a perimeter around an abandoned general store, the first of their numerous destinations for the day.  
  
The store was already pretty well picked over, most likely by those no longer able to tell the tale of their looting. Even so, Jean’s crew would scavenge for anything that might be of use; in a world where resources were now painfully finite, the concept of having too much of any one thing no longer existed. Simple things once considered a luxury and convenience were now a precious commodity, most likely never to be manufactured again.  
  
While a group of well-armed soldiers fanned out around the building to guarantee that they remained uninterrupted, the others scoured the aisles for goods. Jean walked the length of the store, keeping an eye out for any possible threat that might have been overlooked during their initial sweep of the premises… and trying to ignore the charismatic madman walking by his side.  
  
“We should check the back rooms again,” Kimblee suggested, a smile slowly spreading across his face.  
  
It was not a terrible idea, and Jean had every intention of doing just that. However, he knew full well that the group’s safety was not Kimblee’s primary objective.  
  
“Look, Kimblee,” he began as he used the tip of his rifle to poke at an overturned display that advertised _super low prices!_ on whatever had once filled the shelves beside it. “In spite of whatever I may have said or done to give you the impression that I am even remotely interested in what you are offering, let me clarify one thing for you. It’s  _never_ going to happen.”  
  
“You have no idea what you’re missing, Lieutenant Havoc.”  
  
“And I don’t want to know.” Jean turned to look at the deranged alchemist who was, in his own very special way, far more frightening than the monsters that had consumed a good chunk of the human race. “So drop it. Okay?”  
  
Knowing eyes peered at him from under the brim of a white fedora. “Mustang is a very lucky man.”  
  
“... What are you trying to say, Kimblee?”  
  
“I don’t know, Lieutenant,” Kimblee replied, his smile growing wider. “What _am_ I trying to say?”  
  
Jean’s jaw clenched at the implication. He knew deep down that Kimblee was just reaching, trying to get a rise out of him one way since he would never be able to do so the other way. Still, the statement hit too close to home for his comfort. He had taken great measures to ensure the privacy of his relationship with Roy. And while he knew enough to realize that there might come a day when the true nature of their union became common knowledge to a select few, Zolf Kimblee was most certainly not one among them.  
  
“Let’s go,” he muttered, turning away from the other man and continuing his stroll through the store.  
  
“Yes, Sir,” Kimblee said with graceful sarcasm, tipping his hat with armor-plated fingers and falling into stride behind him.  
  
The overall haul was not as big as Jean would have liked, but such was becoming the case more often. He tried not to think about what would happen if--and to be honest, _when_ \--the day came that there was nothing more to be scavenged anywhere. No more food, no more medication, no more ammunition, nothing. The food situation was not quite as worrisome; a section of land at HQ was devoted to gardening and some of the civilians had done a fine job at keeping them all supplied with a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. But as for everything else… well, they would just have to cross that bridge when they got there.  
  
After they were done in the store, they would move their search to the surrounding neighborhood and check houses for additional supplies as well as survivors, the latter of which was becoming just as rare a find these days as the former. Just how many people had died waiting to be saved? It was another harsh fact of this new reality that Jean preferred not to contemplate.  
  
He checked the back rooms one last time as planned, taking great pains not to acknowledge Kimblee. When that was done, he signaled to his men to wrap things up and assisted them with loading goods into the large military cargo truck that they used for the occasion.  
  
Afterwards, Jean consulted his map. Partly to give the men a much needed break and partly to pretend to verify their next stop as if he had not memorized their exact course of action in the days leading up to today. But mostly because he _really_ needed a cigarette. He had not had one since that morning, back in Roy’s office-turned-room, with one hand possessively clutching a soothing stick of nicotine goodness as the other hand possessively clutched his lover, and all the while trying not to wonder whether or not that would be the last time he got to touch either of them ever again.  
  
He took his time, inhaling slowly and deeply, relishing the satisfying rush of smoke that filled his lungs. It would not always be that good; cigarettes had a shelf life just like anything else, albeit it an extended one, and the day would eventually come when whatever was left of them would become stale and unsmokeable. Maybe it would not be a bad idea to look into growing his own tobacco. Jean was not the only smoker at HQ so it was not a completely selfish thought. But alas, that was at the ass end of a long list of far more important concerns so there was no point in worrying about it yet.  
  
When he realized that Kimblee had been quiet for far too long, Jean looked up and found the man watching him like a hawk.  
  
“What?” he muttered irritably around the cigarette between his lips.  
  
“I’m just admiring your attractiveness,” Kimblee purred.  
  
Jean rolled his eyes. The man’s blatant flirting was annoying as hell but at least he was too preoccupied with coming on to Jean to creep out the others, who remembered what Kimblee was capable of doing. The memory of their comrade’s exploding body was still too horribly vivid in their minds for any of them to forget anytime soon.  
  
“You are a pain in my ass. You know that?”  
  
“If only.”  
  
Before Jean could even dignify the subtle and stomach-turning raunchiness of Kimblee’s reply with a response of his own, he heard his name being called by one of the soldiers at the north end of the store. Urgently.  
  
“Hold this,” he said, handing Kimblee the map. “And stay put.”  
  
He jogged over to the man and was just about to inquire what the problem was… until he saw what the problem was for himself.  
  
“... What the hell?”  
  
Jean snatched the long range binoculars from the soldier. He raised them to his eyes to confirm what his now pounding heart already knew to be true.  
  
His cigarette fell out of his mouth and hit the ground, where it rolled away in a gust of wind until it became lodged beneath the tire of a fire-damaged car, out of sight and out of mind.  
  
*****  
  
“It’s like a parade,” Barry mused as he stood still on the side of the road. “A big parade of the walking dead.”  
  
Riza was tempted to pull Barry’s head up just enough to see what he was describing, but she decided not to take the chance. Besides, she did not need to witness what was going on to know that it was bad. By the sound alone, she could tell that there were at least a few hundred of those things out there. And while she had no doubt that Barry could hold his own against some of them, there was no way that he could fend off an entire swarm while keeping her safely concealed.  
  
“Can I _please_ kill a few?” the deranged suit of armor pleaded, raising his cleaver. “Just one?”  
  
“No!” Riza whispered harshly. “Now be quiet before they hear you.”  
  
She frowned as she thought about their next move, ignoring Barry’s mumbling and the stench of rotting organs that plastered the armor around her. There was no way to stop them, not when the two of them were so incredibly outnumbered. And she could not warn anyone at HQ that an army of undead were headed straight their way.  
  
But if they tagged along with the crowd then maybe…  
  
It was crazy, what she was thinking of doing. But then again, considering her situation, crazy was about all she had left.  
  
If nothing else, it would make Barry very happy.  
  
“Okay, listen,” she said, keeping her voice low. “This is what we’re going to do…”  
  
*****  
  
_“Havoc? What’s going on?”_  
  
Jean stared out of the passenger window of the cargo truck as it raced towards HQ. Roy’s voice was as calm as always but in spite of that, Jean could still sense the concern beneath it. He recalled his lover’s request the night before, a simple but heartfelt command not to die, and he prayed that today would not be the day when his promise was put to the test.  
  
“We had to cut the field trip short,” he spoke into the handheld radio in his grasp. “It looks like we’re going to have some company.”  
  
_“How many?”_  
  
“From what I could tell? Five hundred. Maybe more.”  
  
The hesitation on Roy’s end was brief, but Jean still noticed. He could hardly blame him. They had dealt with their fair share of attacks in the past but never anything on such a massive scale.  
  
_“How long do we have?”_  
  
Jean did a quick bit of mental calculation. “Four hours, tops. We should be back in about one.”  
  
_“Got it.”_  
  
The connection was severed. Jean placed the radio on his lap and reached into his pocket for a cigarette. He lowered the window as he lit it and dragged hard and deep, his face drawn in a frown.  
  
It had briefly occurred to him to tell Roy about the apparent leader of the pack of doom, the creature that appeared to be covered in black. But Jean had no reason to suspect that anything was different about that particular one. For all he knew or could tell, it had just been badly burned and somehow managed to survive. Having seen what Roy could do to their kind, he knew all too well that some could withstand an immense amount of fire and keep on going.  
  
He had no idea that what he saw was actually a living dead Homunculus sheathed in an indestructible Shield.  
  
Nor did he realize that the events to come might have played out a whole lot differently had he thought to mention the being to the man sitting right beside him.  
  
Four hours. If that. Not nearly enough time to prepare for what could very well be their final battle.  
  
He turned and looked past Kimblee to the soldier sitting behind the wheel.  
  
“Drive faster.”


	10. "Endgame"

For one very brief moment, Roy had considered corralling the civilians into the fortified bunkers without telling them why. Dealing with an impending swarm of creatures was bad enough; he had no desire to have that chaos amplified by crowds of terrified humans. Jean was thankful that he had decided not to go through with that, and to their surprise, the remaining citizens of the plague-ridden region cooperated fully, in spite of their obvious fear.  
  
Now, with just about one hour—or less—to go before being confronted with certain doom, Roy and Jean met with Kimblee, Breda, Fuery, Ed, and Al in their shared room while the other soldiers took their places, armed to the teeth and strategically spread out across the grounds to best protect the premises. Jean crushed out his cigarette on the edge of Roy’s desk and immediately lit another one; if he was going to die, then he planned on smoking right up until the very end.  
  
“Breda,” Roy began. “I want you and Fuery to take a group of men and guard the bunker doors. If things go badly, then the two of you will lead the last line of defense. The last stand.”  
  
“Yes, Sir,” Breda and Fuery said, saluting.  
  
“Fullmetal and Alphonse, I want you to go with them.”  
  
“But I want to fight!” Ed insisted. “I can help!”  
  
“I know you can,” Roy replied. “And if all else fails, then you will. But it is more important that you stay with your brother and keep him safe.”  
  
Jean saw Ed relax slightly upon the mention of his sibling’s safety. He sensed that the teen had expected Roy to send Al out into the fray. While that would not have been unwise, Jean also knew that his lover was a long-term thinker, even in the face of death. Like Kimblee, Al was a valuable asset to all of them, one that would not be utilized unless Roy felt he had no other alternative. One experimental voyage into a sea of undead was not definitive enough proof that the boy could hold his own against what was coming. This also eliminated any chance of Ed doing something stupid or downright dangerous for the sake of protecting his little brother.  
  
The four of them exited the room. Jean wondered if he would ever see any of them again.  
  
“Havoc, I want you on the north gun tower. Snipe as many of those things as you can to give the ground crew a fighting chance.”  
  
“You got it, Chief.”  
  
“Kimblee. You’re with me.” Roy stared at the rogue alchemist. “ _Stay_ with me unless I tell you otherwise.”  
  
“Very well,” Kimblee replied with a disappointed sigh.  
  
Roy pulled on one glove and pocketed a spare. “Okay then. Let’s go.”  
  
This was their job. As a soldier, Jean understood that all too well. But the thought of walking out of that room, the same room in which he and Roy had made love just the night before, without a proper goodbye was unacceptable. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that he could just grab the man and kiss him right there in front of Kimblee, although that was exactly what he wanted to do. Regardless, if the relationship that they had managed to scrape together in the midst of so much awfulness was going to end today, it couldn’t end like this.  
  
“Chief.”  
  
As Kimblee walked through the door, Roy turned to face him, his expression an uncharacteristically raw reflection of everything that Jean was feeling. Gloved fingers brushed against Jean’s hand, one simple touch that conveyed all of the things that time would not allow to be spoken.  
  
“Don’t forget your promise.”  
  
Jean smiled. As far as potential last moments went, this would do.  
  
“Yes, Sir.”  
  
*****  
  
The monster herd finally came into view half an hour later. They weren’t close yet but their approach was officially inevitable. Jean and the other snipers positioned in various towers had the best view of them from high above and watched as they lurched toward HQ like some drunken and disheveled battalion.  
  
“Fuck,” Jean whispered around his cigarette, staring through his rifle scope with a look of horror.  
  
There were more of them now, far more than before, stragglers, perhaps, that felt compelled to follow the crowd. The burnt creature still appeared to be leading the pack, heading straight for them. If Jean didn’t know any better, he would have thought that the creature was directing the monsters there on purpose. That was certainly the way it seemed.  
  
“They’re coming,” he radioed to the others. His voice was remarkably calm even though his heart was beating a mile a minute. “On my mark, start picking off as many of them as you can. Head shots, people. That’s the only thing that will kill them for sure. Let’s get as many of these fuckers as we can before they get any closer.”  
  
Jean pitched his cigarette off the tower and readied himself. This was it. Whether or not he and the others lived to see tomorrow would be a direct result of their actions today. Right now.   
  
“Ready… aim… _fire!_ ”  
  
*****  
  
The sound of gunfire filled the air. The only sound that would have been lovelier than that, as far as Zolf J. Kimblee was concerned, was the sound of explosions. Those came minutes later when the monsters reached the proximity mines. But for every cluster of creatures felled by bullets and bombs, another appeared, pushing forward with mindless determination.  
  
“I can’t bring the burnt one down!” Jean’s voice over the radio was desperate and frustrated. “Bullets aren’t doing a goddamn thing!”  
  
“Neither are the mines,” Roy responded grimly, peering at the thing through his binoculars. “It doesn’t really look like it’s burnt. I don’t know, maybe that’s some sort of… protective covering.”  
  
Protective covering? Kimblee approached Roy and politely tapped him on the shoulder. He would have much rather done something a little more violent, but he suspected that the officer would not be receptive to his preferred method of getting his attention. “May I have a look?”  
  
“Not now, Kimblee,” Roy growled.  
  
“I’m afraid I must insist.”  
  
Roy turned on Kimblee, his eyes blazing with anger. “Damn it, Kimblee. I said—”  
  
Kimblee snatched the binoculars from Roy’s hand before the man had a chance to say anything else. He used them to look out at the unfolding madness, and right there in the middle of the smoke and bodies, he saw what he was looking for.  
  
“I see.” Kimblee lowered the binoculars. “Tell the Lieutenant to stop wasting his ammunition.”  
  
“What?” Roy grabbed the binoculars and frowned at the disgraced alchemist. “What are you talking about?”  
  
Kimblee calmly smoothed his armor-plated hands over his jacket while shots continued being fired all around them. “I’m talking about a Homunculus,” he explained. “A very powerful and apparently very dead Homunculus that is impervious to weapons of any kind.”  
  
“How do you know that?” Roy asked.  
  
“In the past, he and I had what you might call a working relationship,” Kimblee said. “One that I terminated through less than ethical means. I do not believe that his arrival here is a coincidence.”  
  
He took a step forward and stared into the distance, his ponytail waving gently in the breeze.  
  
“His name is Greed. And he’s coming for me.”  
  
*****  
  
Mere seconds after Roy’s sudden and unexpected command to stop firing on the creature that was not burnt at all according to Kimblee, waves of fire ignited the area where the thing was walking, reducing every other creature around it to bones and ash.  
  
Still, it kept coming.  
  
“What the hell?” Jean shook his head. How in the world was it still standing after Roy’s attack?  
  
He resumed shooting, taking out dozens upon dozens of the monsters, only to see them replaced by dozens upon dozens more. Jean felt a sickening lurch in his stomach when they started filtering through the main gate. The front line of soldiers gradually began backing up as the space between them and the enemy started to close. Jean had foolishly hoped that they might be able to stop them well before they got this far. This was not a good sign.  
  
Out of the corner of his eye, Jean spotted Roy moving toward the herd with his arm outstretched. He watched as the officer snapped his fingers and another wave of flames washed over the masses. Although he trusted that Roy knew what he was doing, being the efficient leader that he was, Jean found that his composure was dissolving all the same with each step that the man took toward the beast that couldn’t be killed. If it managed to get its claws on Roy…  
  
That was the thought that broke him. Jean pulled his rifle from the tripod and shoved two extra magazines in his pockets. He was just about to leave the tower when Kimblee’s voice called out to him.  
  
“Get off the fucking radio, Kimblee!” Jean barked into the two-way radio. “I don’t have time for this.”  
  
“If you want to save your Colonel, you will make the time,” Kimblee replied. “I am going to give you one chance to get this right, Lieutenant. Just one. So listen to me, very carefully.”  
  
*****  
  
Roy could see the Homunculus directly ahead through the fire and smoke and he steeled himself to rain down even more fire. As much as it would take. It had survived his attempts so far, but he had to believe that he would be able to do more damage from a closer position. As he prepared to attack, the beast suddenly paused, its attention seemingly drawn elsewhere. Before Roy could discover what caused it to halt, he caught a flash of movement to his left. One of the things emerged from the smoke and was almost right upon him, just about close enough to reach out and touch him. Roy grabbed the handgun he had taken with him for close encounters and raised it, ready to fire… just in time to see the thing’s now severed head strike the ground seconds before its body followed suit.  
  
“Woo-hoo!”  
  
While it was clear to Roy that he was seeing a large suit of armor holding two very big cleavers and doing a victory dance while the entrails that were slathered over it plopped to the ground, he had a hard time understanding _why_ he was seeing it.  
  
“Let me out of here, Barry!”  
  
Roy’s eyes widened when he heard the second voice that sounded like it was coming from _within_ the dancing suit of armor. It was a voice he wasn’t sure if he would ever hear again. “… Hawkeye? Is that you?”  
  
Riza Hawkeye extracted herself from Barry’s armor. She stood in front of her commanding officer looking like she had just experienced a hundred levels of hell, gun at the ready. “Yes, Sir.”  
  
Roy’s lip curved in a smirk, in spite of all the hell breaking loose. If he lived to see the end of the day, he would sleep well that night knowing that one of his flock had found her way back home. “You’re late.”  
  
“Won’t happen again, Sir,” Riza promised.  
  
“See that it doesn’t,” Roy said, handing over his gun. “Let’s get to work.”  
  
*****  
  
“Kimblee, what are you doing?” Roy called out minutes later as the alchemist walked past him.  
  
“Run along and be a hero somewhere else,” Kimblee responded without even bothering to look Roy’s way. “This is my fight.”  
  
He kept moving, ignoring Roy and his party and the deafening sounds of the battle that raged around him. He had no feelings one way or the other that the Hawkeye woman was alive (and curiously accompanied by a beastly looking thing he suspected was just as empty as the Elric boy). There were far more important matters to address. Greed had found him and was now stumbling toward him. Just as planned.  
  
“Hello, Greed.” Kimblee smiled as the monster closed in. “You look terrible.”  
  
*****  
  
Jean was only vaguely aware of Riza’s return. He would celebrate later, presuming he made it to later, but for now, all of his concentration was focused on Kimblee and the grotesque being that staggered his way. Now that it was much closer, frighteningly closer, he could see it clearly. What he had mistaken for burns was actually just skin. Strange, black skin lined with red. It was unlike anything he had ever seen, and he had seen a lot since the world fell apart. What the hell was that thing?  
  
_Wait for the right moment,_ Kimblee had said. _You’ll know it when you see it._  
  
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” Jean whispered as he tracked Kimblee through the scope and waited.  
  
*****  
  
There was so much commotion all around him—fire and smoke and bits and pieces of his traveling companions scattered on the ground. But what mattered most was right in front of him. The old Greed might have paused to evaluate why Kimblee was just standing there, waiting for him. However, that Greed was gone, never to return, and now that _this_ Greed had found his target, the hunger that he had forsaken emerged with a vengeance.  
  
The section of Ultimate Shield that guarded his face faded away, revealing the hideousness that was once Greed’s original face. He lunged at Kimblee, prepared to bite…  
  
*****  
  
The moment had arrived.  
  
Jean’s first shot missed when the monster threw Kimblee to the ground, all the while still clamping down on his armor-plated right arm. Jean lost them for a few seconds in a haze of smoke from Roy’s assault on the other intruders, but fortunately it dissipated quickly and he immediately found them again.  
  
Jean fired a second shot. This time, he didn’t miss. The creature’s head shattered, sending a spray of blood, bones, and brains all over Kimblee’s white suit. It fell down to the ground beside Kimblee, whereupon the rest of its body transformed back into whatever it was prior to changing. To Jean, it just looked like some guy. But what kind of guy could turn his body into something so indestructible? Not that it mattered much now that it was dead, but Jean still wanted to know.  
  
Lowering his gun, Jean was able to see a wider view of the catastrophe that had unfolded. There was fire and smoke and bodies everywhere. The good news was that it appeared as if most of the ones that had breached the gate were dead, or very close to it thanks to Roy’s fire, Riza’s guns, and an overly excited cleaver-wielding suit of armor Jean had yet to meet. The bad news was that the barricade that the men hastily made to block the gate’s entrance would only hold for so long. They needed to regroup, and fast. Jean grabbed his radio and was just about to communicate this to the others when he saw something that made him worry more than he would have ever imagined possible.  
  
Kimblee was still lying on the ground.  
  
*****  
  
After bolting out of the tower and racing across the yard, a winded Jean stopped and stared at the man on the ground.  
  
“Kimblee?” Jean nudged him with his boot, his heart racing, and not just because he had been running. _“Kimblee!”_  
  
“My suit is ruined.” Kimblee rolled onto his back and motioned to the corpse beside him. “By the way, this is Greed. An old acquaintance. His brains are all over me and it is highly unpleasant.”  
  
“You asshole!” Jean let out a massive sigh of relief. “I thought you were dead.”  
  
Kimblee smiled at Jean. “Why, Lieutenant Havoc. If you keep that up, I'm going to think that you actually care about me.”  
  
“I don’t want to see anyone else die,” Jean said. “Not even you, you prick. Now get your ass up. We still have work to do.”  
  
He leaned over and held out his hand. Kimblee stared at it as if it was something alien before reaching up and taking it, allowing Jean to help him to his feet. “The Colonel is waiting. We need to come up with a new game plan before they attack again.”  
  
“Oh, Lieutenant.” Kimblee started removing the armor from his left arm. “I do wonder what you will do without me.”  
  
Assuming that Kimblee was simply being Kimblee, and thus a giant pain in the ass, Jean shook his head. “Come on,” he said, annoyed. “We don’t have time for your bullshit.”  
  
“I’m afraid I must decline.”  
  
After finishing with the left arm, Kimblee held up his right. The armor was mangled and torn, evidence of the incredible strength of Greed’s bite. Jean could see the bloodstained sleeve of Kimblee’s jacket underneath it.  
  
“Oh, shit.” Jean grabbed the other man’s arm and yanked off the armor, confirming what he knew in his heart to be true. “Goddamn it,” he whispered harshly as he stared at the wound. “Why would you put yourself in that position if you thought there was a chance this might happen?”  
  
“He never would have stopped coming for me. And no amount of alchemy in the world would have killed him.”  
  
“We could have figured something out,” Jean told him. “Since when do you care so much about protecting these people anyway?”  
  
“I don’t. It was never my intention to protect _them_.”  
  
“Kimblee…”  
  
“Let’s dispense with the tenderness,” Kimblee interrupted. “I’ve become far too attached to your insults and threats to have that tainted with any further hint of emotion. Now, why don’t you light one of those dreadful cigarettes you’re so fond of destroying the atmosphere with and share it with me? It will be the closest I ever get to having something of yours in my mouth.”  
  
Jean grinned, in spite of it all. He was stunned to realize that he was actually going to miss this man.  
  
They silently shared a smoke, standing together in the ruin. After they were finished, Jean reached for his gun, mentally preparing himself once again to do what needed to be done.  
  
“That won't be necessary, Lieutenant. I know how to make an exit.” Kimblee spotted his fedora on the ground and picked it up, then dusted it off. “Just make sure you stay back. This is going to be rather messy.”  
  
He started to turn around and then paused.  
  
“One thing, before I go,” he said. “I have to know. You and Mustang. Are you together?”  
  
Considering the circumstances, Jean saw no reason to lie. “Yes,” he confirmed. “We are.”  
  
Kimblee smoothed back the strands of long hair that had come loose and pulled on his hat. “I never had a chance, did I?”  
  
Jean smiled sadly. “Sorry.”  
  
“Ah, well.” Kimblee tipped his hat to the soldier. “Goodbye, Lieutenant.”  
  
“Goodbye, Kimblee.”  
  
Jean waited until Kimblee turned and walked away. Then he headed in the other direction, toward Roy and the others. He didn’t look back once, even when the explosions began.  
  
*****  
  
At first, Kimblee wasn’t sure if the partial corpse he transmuted to break the barricade would be enough. Luckily he was wrong, and he blasted through the temporary wall with ease.  
  
He stared at the throng of undead lurking just past the gate. When they saw him, they started shuffling after him, eager for a bite. Kimblee had every intention of giving them that bite. And a whole lot more.  
  
He held his ground as the creatures descended upon him. The pain was unspeakable. When he was as certain as he was ever going to be that he could get all of them, Kimblee crossed his hands over his chest, palm side down.  
  
While dead bodies made for suitable explosives, living bodies worked _far_ better.  
  
Kimblee initiated his final transmutation, one in which he would use himself to create a chain reaction that would obliterate every single body in his vicinity.  
  
His only regret was that he would never know if the explosion was as beautiful as he imagined.  
  
*****  
  
“Jean?”  
  
Hearing Roy’s voice reminded Jean of another time when the man had come to see him in the gun tower. Back when Falman was still alive and the dead actually died when you shot them in the head.  
  
Jean lit a cigarette. The first one he’d had since sharing one with Kimblee six hours ago. “How’s everything down there? And Hawkeye, how is she? I’m sorry I haven’t said much to her yet.”  
  
Roy joined him by the window. “She understands. And she’s good. A little sore and dehydrated, but good. Her new friend is another matter, but I’m not ready to deal with that yet.” He fell quiet for a moment, carefully debating his next words. “Listen, you know that I didn’t care much for Kimblee, but I want to say that I think you were the only reason he was… slightly less crazy.”  
  
Jean smiled around his cigarette. “Thanks.”  
  
He looked out at the grounds, his eyes trailing over the remnants of a hard-fought fight. In addition to eliminating the creatures that had made the mistake of tagging along with Greed, Kimblee’s grand finale took out a large portion of the main gate. The makeshift replacement wasn’t nearly as secure but it would have to do until they could properly rebuild it. Most of the creatures were destroyed in the blast, however Jean suspected that they would continue finding random body parts for days to come. Grisly though it was, the battle had been won, but the war to reclaim the world was still going strong. Jean wondered how many more lives would be lost before it ended. If it ever ended at all.  
  
He felt the weight of Roy’s body as the other man leaned against him. Before his brain had a chance to stop him, he opened his mouth and blurted all the things his heart longed to say.  
  
“I love you, Roy,” he said, tossing his cigarette and turning to face him. “You don’t have to say it back. Hell, you don’t even have to _feel_ it. But I just needed to tell you that because I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow or the next day and if anything ever happened to you—”  
  
Warm, whiskey-flavored lips cut him off. Jean wrapped his arms around Roy and pulled him close, kissing him deeply, their tongues intertwining. It was not yet dark and anyone who happened to look up would see them, but Jean didn’t care. He kissed Roy like his life depended on it, tasting alcohol and smoke and moaning as fingers weaved through his hair. In his heart, Jean understood that it wasn’t a lustful kiss so much as a celebration of survival (although his body instinctively begged to differ). They were still alive and they were still together and they would continue to fight tooth and nail for both those things as long as they were able.  
  
Eventually they parted, both men breathless and mildly flushed. Roy briefly nuzzled up against the stubble of Jean’s cheek. “I love you, too,” he said with a gentleness in his voice that no one but Jean would ever have the privilege of hearing. “Don’t stay out here all night.”  
  
“Yes, Sir.”  
  
He resumed staring at the destruction after Roy left, his heart seesawing between complete happiness and monumental sadness. He was happy that he was alive and that he had Roy and that Roy loved him. Conversely, he was sad about Falman and that Douglas soldier and, yes, even Kimblee, plus however many more victims there were to come.  
  
But this was life now, such as it was.  Jean planned to stick around for as much of it as possible, come what may.  
  
*****  
  
_October 13  
  
Sorry, Falman. I haven’t done a very good job with this journal. I’ll try to do better.  
  
A lot has happened in the past four months. So much shit that I don’t much feel like writing about yet, on top of all the other shit I didn’t feel like writing about in the first place. I know the purpose of this thing is to remember how everything went down. Thing of it is, whether or not it’s on paper, I’m never going to forget. So how about I start with the things I don’t mind writing about instead?  
  
Let’s see. Breda and Fuery. They’re a couple now. I guess they’ve been a couple for a little while. If anyone had told me that Fuery was the one sucking on Breda’s neck like there was no tomorrow, I would have laughed my ass off. They’re actually kind of cute together, so I try not to give them too much grief. Besides, it’s not like I have room to talk.  And I'm starting to suspect that they know it.  
  
A couple of months ago, Roy finally broke down and let me take the Elric brothers to Risembool. The place was an absolute wasteland, with no sign of life anywhere to be found. In spite of that, those boys are still holding out hope that the Rockbells escaped. I’m not so sure myself but then again, who knows? Hawkeye survived out there against the odds and I hear that Pinako is a badass old lady. Anything is possible.  
  
Last month, Roy went to Central with Hawkeye and Barry. (And I don’t think I slept for more than an hour the whole time he was gone.) He didn’t find Hughes or Armstrong but he did find out more than he ever wanted to know about Lab 5. I think it strengthened his resolve to do things differently if given a second chance. Maybe this whole apocalypse thing is a really fucked up way of getting that second chance. A clean slate. If the world ever recovers from this mess, we’ll get it right the next time around.  
  
Roy and I are still together and doing about as well as we can. We haven’t said those three little words to each other since that day, but we show it in a thousand other ways. I don’t really have much else to say about that because he’s lying next to me and pretending that he's not looking over my shoulder.  I’m going to end this here so I can enjoy one of those thousand ways right now.  
  
~~My name is Jean Havoc and this is my account of the end of the world.~~  
  
My name is Jean Havoc and this is my account of the world as we now know it. _


End file.
